Will India be COVID-19 free country?

In a race to first find the cure to protect people from the spread of novel coronavirus, Russia seems to have won the race by finishing its human trials successfully in the utmost time. Russia introduces COVID-19 vaccine to the world as a ray of hope in the time of darkness and promises to take away all the sorrow of the world by re-introducing the normal way of living.

The vaccine is supposed to be produced at a plant owned by Sistema which is one of Russia’s biggest business groups. The Russian vaccine is developed by Moscow based Gamaleya Institute and has cleared regulatory approvals. According to a report by Sputnik News, the first batch of the Sputnik V vaccine will be produced in two weeks time and delivered to Russian hospitals. The Gamaleya vaccine will be first given to doctors and teachers after which there will be a mass vaccination campaign in October. Sistema said it’s facility had the capacity to produce 1.5 billion doses per year here apart from that request for 1 billion doses of the vaccine had been received from other countries and its International agreements had been secured to produce 500 million annually but names of countries are undisclosed.

TASS (a major news agency in Russia) reported the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, as saying that people who were injected with Gam-COVID-Vac Lyo developed immunity 21 days after receiving the first dose. Their immunity has doubled after they received the second injection, he added.

There are 195 countries in the world today out of which most of the countries are suffering from this pandemic and everyone is eager to get a cure for it. India stands in the same queue to get its citizens immune to this deadly virus by vaccinating them. There are two ways in which the Russian vaccine can be made available in India.

CDSCO i.e The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation can ask Russia to conduct late-phase human trials on Indian population, as the efficacy of vaccine may vary from the population belonging to different natives and last phase trials assure this very thing.

Considering the extraordinary situation right now, CDSCO is also empowered to give emergency authorisation without late-phase trials. It can say it is satisfied with the safety and efficacy data produced during the human trials in Russia, and considering the extraordinary situation, can grant approval for emergency use.

In the case of this disease, specifically, everyone needs to be vaccinated, the risks involved are much higher. Today, more than 50% of vaccines for all kinds of diseases are currently manufactured in India. It is expected that a bulk of vaccines for novel coronavirus, wherever they are developed, would also be produced in India. But there is no agreement for the production of Russian vaccine in India right now and seems like it will take time for the vaccine to launch in India.

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