Hope to use mRNA COVID-19 vaccine developed in India someday: Dr VK Paul

The work on the original mRNA vaccine is in the advanced stage, says Dr VK Paul.

India’s first homegrown Messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, being developed by Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals, is currently under final clinical trials and the government hopes to use it someday, Dr V K Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog said on February 10.

He also said the company has already tweaked the vaccine candidate to work against the Omicron variant and trials are on to assess the safety and efficacy of the modified version.

“The work on the original mRNA vaccine is in the advanced stage but the modified version is also being tested,” said Paul, who also heads the COVID-19 task force, during a press briefing by the Health Ministry on the pandemic status.

This vaccine, according to the official, can be stored and transported at room temperature and the company has also worked on a technology to administer it intra-dermally, rather than intra-muscularly, which makes it logistically easier to use in the national COVID-19 immunisation programme.

He stressed that the country needs mRNA vaccine as it is new, has proven to be effective against coronavirus, is safe, can be used in kids too and can be tweaked easily against emerging variants if any.

“So far, all our COVID-19 vaccines using different platforms have worked but having an mRNA platform in India is going to be an asset,” said Paul. “Today, it can be used against coronavirus but tomorrow it can be used against diseases such as malaria, dengue and other diseases against which vaccines have been eluding.”

Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) director-general Dr Balram Bhargava, while insisting that the hospitalisation and deaths due to COVID-19 in the ongoing wave have remained low mainly due to very high vaccination coverage, also hailed the vaccines developed in the country.

The vaccines developed in India against COVID-19 have established that the country is headed towards becoming a vaccine superpower, he observed.