Serum Institute to be ready with coronavirus vaccine by 2022

The statement said since the novel coronavirus has affected the lives of thousands of people on the planet, a preventive measure has become a necessity.

PTI

February 19, 2020 / 20:06 IST

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City-based Serum Institute of India (SII) on Wednesday said it expects to be ready with a vaccine against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) by early 2022.

SII announced that a vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 2,000 people in China since its outbreak in December-end, is expected to progress to human trial phase within the next six months.

"The vaccine candidate, developed by SII in partnership with American biotechnology firm Codagenix, has progressed to the pre-clinical test phase (the animal trial phase) and we hope to be ready with the vaccine by early 2022," SII CEO Adar Poonawalla said in a statement here.

"The combined efforts with the team at Codagenix have borne fruit and we hope to save millions of lives with this vaccine," he said.

The statement said since the novel coronavirus has affected the lives of thousands of people on the planet, a preventive measure has become a necessity.

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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