Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech’s nasal vaccine against Covid-19 could be a game changer in the fight against the pandemic, said World Health Organisation’s chief scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan.
Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Washington University School of Medicine is developing nasal vaccine BBV154 for children.
Dr. Swaminathan, in an interview with CNN-News18, said, “Some of the nasal vaccines that are going to be made in India could be game changers for children — easy to administer, will give you local immunity in the respiratory tract.”
The first phase trial has been successfully completed.
Second and third phase trials are going on. But the vaccine is not expected before the end of the year.
Pune based Serum Institute of India is also testing intranasal Covid-19 vaccine COVI-VAC.
Earlier, NITI Aayog member Dr. V K Paul had said children infected with Covid-19 were having either no symptoms or very minimal symptoms.
Most of the children generally don’t require hospitalisation.
Currently two India made vaccines, Serum Institue’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, are being administered to adults in the country.
About 20 crore doses have already been administered. Doses of Russian vaccine Sputnik are also available in the country now.
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