India likely to have COVID-19 vaccine within days: AIIMS Director

AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria called the approval of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate a "big step forward" not just for India but several parts of the world as well.

Moneycontrol News

December 31, 2020 / 09:04 AM IST

India is likely to have the COVID-19 vaccine within days, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria on December 30 has said.

Speaking to ANI, Guleria said sufficient data was available from Serum Institute of India (SII) on the Oxford-AstraZenca vaccine against the coronavirus.

"Now, we have a data, and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved based on the studies in UK, Brazil and South Africa. There is also data from Serum Institute of India (SII). I think, once the data is shown to the regulatory authority, we should get approval for the vaccine in the county within a few days. I would say days rather than weeks or months," Guleria told the news agency.

Guleria called the approval of the Oxford-AstraZenca vaccine candidate a "big step forward" not just for India but several parts of the world as well.

Also read: AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine | 5 things to know about landmark UK vaccine

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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