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DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS
19 July, 2020
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Covid-19 Vaccine: ZyCoV-D
GS-PAPER-3 S&T
Recently, India has started phase I/II clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccine - ZyCoV-D, designed and developed by Zydus (a pharmaceutical company) with support from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT).
The adaptive phase I/II clinical trials will assess the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the vaccine. The other indigenously developed vaccine - Covaxin - produced by Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech is also underway to start clinical trials.
Imp Points
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National Biopharma Mission
(BIRAC is a Public Sector Enterprise, set up by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology)
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Plasmids are circular deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) vectors that can be used as vaccines to prevent various types of diseases.
It provides ease of manufacturing the vaccine with minimal biosafety requirements. It has shown much improved vaccine stability and lower cold chain requirements making it easy for transportation to remote regions of the country. Furthermore, the platform can be rapidly used to modify the vaccine in a couple of weeks in case the virus mutates.
Source: IE
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