Govt testing each COVID vaccines for variants, looking at developing a pan-corona shot

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New Delhi: The Centre on Monday (August 23) said that it has a pipeline of vaccines and country's own mRNA candidate was likely to move into phase-3 trial soon. "We have a pipeline of vaccines - EUA (emergency-use approval) given for the DNA vaccine, our own MRNA candidate likely to move into phase-3 soon," Dr Renu Swarup, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, said while speaking to news agency ANI. 

Swarup also said that Biological E candidate may go to the regulator for approval by September-end and nasal vaccine given Phase 2-3 approval. She informed that the government was also testing each of these COVID vaccines for variants of coronavirus. "We are now looking at developing a vaccine that can be pan-corona so that if any other virus comes in then the vaccine can respond to it," Swarup said. 

The secretary also said that the government was now expanding genome sequencing into the state departments. "As of today, over 80,000 sequencings have been done not just for the existing variants but also for any new variant of significance," she said. "So far all the breakthrough infections which have been sequenced there has been no other variant been identified but for the Delta and in some cases we know that we have Alpha in the country," Swarup said.

Last week, Zydus Cadila's COVID vaccine ZyCoV-D received emergency use approval from the Drug Controller General of India and it will be administered to people 12 years and above. This is the world's first DNA-based vaccine against the coronavirus, and this three-dose vaccine when injected produces the spike protein of virus and elicits an immune response, which plays a vital role in protection from the disease as well as viral clearance, the Department of Biotechnology said on Friday.