Even as there are increasing concerns over new strains of the Covid-19 virus, Bharat Biotech said on Tuesday that its vaccine candidate, Covaxin, will be effective in dealing with new strains.

Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin shows 'long-term immunity' in phase II trials

Observing that any virus is expected to have a “lot of mutation,” Krishna M Ella, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Biotech, said the protein components of inactive Covaxin “will take care of mutations.”

He was responding to questions after delivering the 9th Dr Manohar V N Shirodkar Memorial Lecture organised by the Telangana Academy of Sciences on Tuesday.

Public-private partnership key

Covaxin is being developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and has completed phase I and II clinical trials. The phase III efficacy trials of Covaxin were in progress with 20,000 volunteers, Ella said.

A single-dose nasal vaccine for the Covid pandemic is also being developed by the company.

Bharat Biotech, Ocugen team up to develop Covaxin for US market

In his lecture on “Innovation in Public Health - Our Journey,” Ella said there were 40,000 unknown viruses and 10,000 zoonotic viruses and there was a need to focus on neglected and unknown diseases that could become global pandemics in future.

“We can take leadership in pandemic problems and neglected diseases,” Ella said.

The public-private partnership model was instrumental in vaccine development, in inspiring research and development, funding and networking, among others, he added.

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