On Friday, 20 August, Zydus Cadila's ZyCoV-D vaccine received emergency use authorisation from the Drug Controller General of India, for use among adults and children aged 12 years and above. At a press conference on Saturday, the company said that it would be able to produce one crore doses per month starting October this year, reported NDTV.
While the government had projected that there would be 5 crore doses of the vaccine available by August, the pharma company said that it would only be able to meet the government's commitment by December or January and will have produced between 3 and 5 crore doses by then.
As per NDTV's report, Zydus is in talks with a few third party companies with regards to forming a production alliance aided by a technology transfer. The price of the vaccine, which will be announced next month in September, will factor in the technology and delivery costs.
ZyCOV-D is a three-dose, intradermal vaccine that was developed with the Department of Biotechnology and is the second Indian shot that has received approval for emergency use after Covaxin, which was developed by Bharat Biotech.
India Today reported that the nature of its injection in the upper layers of the skin lead to a significant decrease in the side-effects following immunisation.
The needle-free inoculation system requires a special applicator which ensures painless vaccination. The company has secured an initial stock of these applicators and is working to procure two crore applicators for one crore doses.
Its approval makes it the sixth shot with emergency use authorisation in India.
The drugmaker had announced that the world's first DNA plasmid vaccine had showed 66.6 percent efficacy rate in late-stage trials conducted on 28,000 volunteers in India after which it had applied for emergency use authorisation on 1 July.
Dr Sharvil Patel, MD, Zydus Group told news agency ANI that trials were conducted in 50 centres in the country. He further added:
Overall, the trials on 28,000 volunteers were conducted. We've done the trials on 1,400 adolescents of 12-18 yrs. In all the trials, we've not seen any severe side effects related to the vaccine."Dr Sharvil Patel, MD, Zydus Group speaking to news agency ANI
Later, the company said that their vaccine was effective against the new Delta variants of the coronavirus, which are highly transmissible, as per NDTV.
Zydus' vaccine can be used to inoculate those aged over 12, which means that India is likely to begin vaccination for children between 12 and 18 ahead of the third wave.
Dr Patel told ANI that the pharma group had not started studies for the younger age group of children between 2 to 12 years of age. "We've done the trials on 1,400 adolescents of 12-18 years. In all the trials, we've not seen any severe side effects related to the vaccine," he said.
(With inputs from NDTV, ANI and India Today)
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