Bharat Biotech has air-shipped COVAXIN to 11 cities in India on Wednesday. Bharat Biotech has also donated 16.5 lakh doses to the Government of India.
After having received the government purchase order for 55 lakh doses, Bharat Biotech shipped the first batch of vaccines (each vial containing 20 doses) to Ganavaram, Guwahati, Patna, Delhi, Kurukshetra, Bangalore, Pune, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Chennai and Lucknow. While some shipments have arrived in the respective cities, others will be delivered later this evening.
This vaccine by Bharat Biotech is India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) – National Institute of Virology (NIV).
A company release informed, “The evaluation of COVAXIN has resulted in several unique product characteristics including long term persistence of immune responses to multiple viral proteins, as opposed to only the spike protein, and has demonstrated broad-spectrum neutralising capability with heterologous SARS-CoV-2 strains, thus potentially reducing or eliminating escape mutants.”
It added, “This vaccine has also shown to generate memory T cell responses, for its multiple epitopes, indicating longevity and rapid antibody response to future infections. Its most critical characteristic is the demonstrated safety profile, which is significantly lower than several other vaccines with published data. COVAXIN is presented in multi-dose vials, can be stored at 2-8ºC.”
The company’s statement also said, “The product development and clinical trial data thus far has generated five publications, which have been submitted to international peer-reviewed journals, four of which have been accepted and will be published soon. The publication of phase II trial data is undergoing the peer review process.”