E- Corbevax 2nd Made-In-India vaccine

  • The government has booked 30 crore doses of Hyderabad-based Biological-E's Covid vaccine, which is still in clinical trials. 
  • The Health Ministry will make an advance payment of ₹ 1,500 crore to the company for what will be the second made-in-India vaccine to be used in the country after Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. 

CORBEVAX

  • Corbevax is a “recombinant protein sub-unit” vaccine, which means it is made up of a specific part of SARS-CoV-2 — the spike protein on the virus’s surface. 
  • The spike protein allows the virus to enter the cells in the body so that it can replicate and cause disease. 
  • However, when this protein alone is given to the body, it is not expected to be harmful as the rest of the virus is absent. 
  • The body is expected to develop an immune response against the injected spike protein. 
  • Therefore, when the real virus attempts to infect the body, it will already have an immune response ready that will make it unlikely for the person to fall severely ill. 
  • Although this technology has been used for decades to make hepatitis B vaccines, Corbevax will be among the first Covid-19 vaccines to use this platform.
  • Like most other Covid-19 vaccines, Corbevax is administered in two doses.

HOW CORBEVAX IS DIFFERENT?

  • Other Covid-19 vaccines approved so far are either mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna), Viral vector vaccines (AstraZeneca-Oxford/Covishield, Johnson & Johnson and Sputnik V) or Inactivated vaccines (Covaxin, Sinovac-CoronaVac and Sinopharm’s SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine–Vero Cell).
  • On the other hand, Corbevax, like the mRNA and viral vector Covid-19 vaccines, targets only the spike protein, but in a different way. 
  • Viral vector and mRNA and vaccines use a code to induce our cells to make the spike proteins against which the body have to build immunity. 
  • In the case of Corbevax, the protein is actually being used. 

BIOLOGICAL E

  • Biological E, headquartered in Hyderabad, was founded by Dr D V K Raju in 1953 as a biological products company. 
  • It pioneered the production of heparin in India. 
  • By 1962, it forayed into the vaccines space, producing DPT vaccines on a large-scale.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hamas V. PLO

The irony in the ongoing conflict is that Hamas, whose founding members were encouraged by Israel in the 1970s and 80s against Yasser Arafat’s secular national movement, has turned out to be Israel’s biggest rival in the Palestinian territories. HAMAS Hamas was established after the first intifada broke out in 1987, as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.  Intifada was the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  The first intifada lasted from 1987 to 1993, and the second began in 2000. As strife between Israel and Palestine continued to soar as the latter resorted to the First Intifada, or uprising, in December 1987, Hamas as an organisation led by Sunni-Islamic fundamentalists, began to take shape.  Hamas could gain immediate and immense popularity within the protesting Palestinians because it was ...
Read more

G7 global corporate Tax Deal

Image
The Group of Seven (G7) countries have backed the proposal to impose a common global corporate tax. It would be aimed at preventing multinational businesses from evading taxes and also squeeze the havens which attract tax evaders due to the low-rate jurisdictions.  The consensus to adopt a common tax rate was reached at the G7 finance ministers' meeting held in Buckingham (London) on June 5.  THE PROPOSAL The tax proposal endorsed by the US, the UK, France and other G7 countries has two parts.  The main part of the proposal states that countries around the world should tax their home companies' overseas profits at a rate of at least 15%.  The companies have multiple branches spread across various jurisdictions, they transfer the bulk of their profit in accounts set up in countries that offer the lowest tax rate.  Often, these tax havens are the Caribbean Islands such as Bahamas or British Virgin Islands, or at times, countries like Ireland where the corp...
Read more

The statue of Swami Vivekananda at the JNU campus

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually unveiled a life-sized statue of Swami Vivekananda at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus on November 12. JNUSU (JNU students' union), un response, planned to protest on campus.  They believe the Modi government “openly supported” violence on campuses and is attacking universities with the National Education Policy which will result in fund cuts and privatization of education. FUNDING CONTROVERSY It was on June 30, 2017 that JNU’s Executive Council (EC) first gave approval for the statue.  The administration said it was installing the statue to give the campus a more “pleasing look” as Vivekananda had contributed to “nation building”. The administration remained mum on who was funding the statue and how much it would cost.  Then JNU Students’ Union president N Sai Balaji filed several RTIs to know about the funding. In January 2018, he filed an RTI seeking the total cost of construction of the statue as well as the sour...
Read more