Anocovax: What to Know About India's First Animal COVID Vaccine | FAQ
Anocovax COVID vaccine is India's first homegrown vaccine. Here's what to know about it.
Anocovax:1stCOVID Vaccine for anmals in India
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Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, on 8 June, launched India's first COVID-19 vaccine for animals called Anocovax.
"It is due to the untiring contributions of scientists that the country stands self-reliant in developing its own vaccines more rather than importing. This is really a big achievement," Tomar was quoted as saying by PTI.
Details regarding the roll-out and cost of the vaccine is still awaited.
How does the vaccine work?
Which animals can safely take it?
FIT answers your FAQs.
Who is making it?
Anocovax was developed, and is being produced by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research(ICAR) - National Research Center on Equines (NRCE) in Hisar, Haryana.
How does Anocovax work?
Anocovax is an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 Delta vaccine. Which means it used antigens of the Delta variant, along with an adjuvant – in this case, Alhydrogel.
Which animals can take it?
According to the ICAR, the vaccine is safe for use in dogs, lions, leopards, mice and rabbits.
Does it protect against the Omicron variant?
The vaccine uses Delta antigens, and so is primarily a vaccine that works against the Delta variant. According to the ICAR, however, it works against the Omicron variant as well.
How common is COVID in animals?
Although COVID is a zoonotic disease, which means it jumped from animals to humans, instances of COVID causing illness in house pets are rare. However, it can happen.
According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), SARS-CoV-2, the COVID virus infecting humans, can infect animals that come into close contact with infected humans.
At the same time, there isn't any evidence of the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from animals to humans through contact.
Are there any other COVID vaccines available for animals?
In April 2021, Russia announced that it had registered the world's first COVID vaccine for animals, called Carnivac-Cov.
In the US too, in later 2021, many animals, especially in zoos were given an experimental COVID vaccine produced by pharmaceutical company Zoetis - a subsidiary of Pfizer.
Anocovax is India's first COVID vaccine meant for animals.
(Written with inputs from PTI.)
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