Get Ready For India’s Single Dose Covid Vaccine!

At present, two Covid-19 vaccines are approved in India. These two made-in-India vaccines were approved by the DGCI for its emergency usage. Whilst one is manufactured by Serum Institute of India, the other one is Bharat Biotech.Covaxin too received Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA).

The latest is that Bharat Biotech is also upbeat about its another Covid-19 vaccine which is under development. It is an intranasal Covid vaccine. What’s more? It is only a single dose which means there is no need for the second dose. It is touted to be quicker, non-invasive and easy to administer.

Bharat Biotech chairman and managing director Dr Krishna Ella is upbeat about this intranasal Covid-19 vaccine. He claims this vaccine will be faster, stronger and longer immunity. He also claims it as an “eco-friendly” Covid-19 vaccine.

“You just need to put one drop here (in one nostril) and another drop there (other nostril), you are done with the vaccination,” said Dr Krishna Ella in a chat with Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar Shah during the TiE global summit held earlier.

According to reports, Bharat Biotech is working on two intranasal vaccines – one is with the University of Washington School of Medicine at St Louis (WashU) and another with USA-based vaccine maker FluGen and virologists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Dr Krishna Ella’s alma mater).

Of the two intranasal vaccines being developed by Bharat Biotech, the one being developed with Washington School of Medicine has reportedly shown “extremely promising results” in animal studies and is going to begin Phase I/II human trials this month. It is buzzed that the intranasal vaccine is expected to be ready for use by the third quarter of 2021. It is reported that Bharat Biotech has come up with a plan to produce the intranasal vaccine that is enough to vaccinate 500 million people with the single dose.

“The nasal vaccine is probably the best choice if you want to stop the infection and transmission of Covid-19,” Bharat Biotech’s CMD Dr Krishna Ella said earlier this week.

As the vaccine is still under development and the human trials are still yet to begin, we have to wait and watch, what is in store for these intranasal Covid-19 vaccines.