Proud moment for Make In India; first Zika vaccine has been developed by an Indian vaccine maker

Bharat Biotech, a Hyderabad-based vaccines and bio-therapeutic manufacturer, has claimed that it has achieved a breakthrough in developing a vaccine to fight Zika, the dreaded mosquito-borne virus, which has surfaced in the recent past, and causes serious birth defects in children.

Bharat Biotech homes some of the most brilliant minds in the world and began its work on the Zika virus almost a year ago, said Krishna Ella, CMD of Bharat Biotech.

"We believe we have an early mover advantage in developing the Zikavac and we are probably the first in the world to file for global patent for Zika vaccine candidates. We have two candidate vaccines in development. One of them is an inactivated vaccine that has reached the stage of pre-clinical testing in animals," Ella said.

While quoting a WHO report, Ella said that the dreadful virus is now present in 23 countries and Brazil, which has been hit the hardest, has reported around 3,530 cases of the disease caused due to it.

"We hope to announce the arrival of Zikavac to the world as early as possible," he said.

Zika virus is spread by mosquitoes of the Aedes genus, which can breed in a pool of water as small as a bottle cap. The mosquito usually bites during the day, and the transmitted infection is related to Dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile virus.

"Considering that women of child-bearing age and pregnant women are the prime target group for Zika virus vaccine, we consider safety as the overriding factor in development of a new vaccine for this virus. The vaccine methods developed early on, before the devastating consequences of the epidemics in Brazil came to light provided us a push to accelerate vaccine development," Dr Sumathy, Director, R&D, Bharat Biotech said.

As of now, the vaccine maker is focusing towards scaling up and characterizing the vaccine product.

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