HomeNewsIndiaPeople who are infected should also take vaccine: Bharat Biotech Chairman Krishna Ella

People who are infected should also take vaccine: Bharat Biotech Chairman Krishna Ella

Krishna Ella was speaking in a virtual session on 'Sero surveillance significance in immunogenicity and safety in pre and post vaccination era' organised by industry body CII.

December 23, 2020 / 20:29 IST

People who are infected should also take a vaccine, and India is well prepared regarding the logistics for the vaccine distribution, Bharat Biotech Chairman & MD Krishna Ella said on Wednesday.

He was speaking in a virtual session on 'Sero surveillance significance in immunogenicity and safety in pre and post vaccination era' organised by industry body CII.

For the people who are infected, should they take a vaccine, "the answer is yes", because they may not have a good T cells response..., Ella said.

Talking about the company's efficacy trials of its COVID-19 vaccine, he said that for the efficacy trials the company has taken 24 centres all over the country so that it has tier I ,tier II and tier III cities to capture the efficacy in a better way.

On the distribution of vaccines in India, he said India is well prepared for that and Indian immunisation system is very robust, Ella said.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

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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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Speaking at the session, Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar Shaw said, "We have to ensure we have a sense of pandemic preparedness moving ahead".

"We need to understand the need for a concerted effort and a very important paradigm which is based on both antigen and antibody testing is going to be of an immense importance going forward," she added.

About the roadmap, Mazumdar Shaw said: "If we can come up with algorithms and paradigms, which many universities in other parts of the world are looking at as a COVID calculator, we can also come up with very interesting paradigms that will tell us which parts of our society and communities are safe and which parts of our community has actually developed herd immunities and which parts of our country can be opened up with ease".

PTI
first published: Dec 23, 2020 08:29 pm

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