Ziqitza Limited : India’s Position In The Race For A Vaccine

The Coronavirus vaccine is the word that has been on the mind of every individual across the planet as total infections are rising to 30 million and total deaths towards one million. As indicated by past research and history, scientists have predicted a safe vaccine will release in November of the year 2034.

But the past doesn’t necessarily dictate the future. Technological advances and much more awareness in the general public may result in a safe and working vaccine being delivered much, much earlier. There are many candidates for the Coronavirus vaccine that are springing up from around the globe and an Indian vaccine is one of the top contenders.

 

The reason why there is a humungous pressure on Indian researchers to develop a vaccine is that the daily infection cases are rising. Recently, India recorded the highest number of cases in a day (90 thousand) amongst all countries and the death toll is rising tremendously. Hospitals were already overworked and are even more so in the pandemic.

Emergency services have been affected a lot. That’s why Ziqitza Healthcare ltd an emergency response and patient transfer service provider for public and corporate at large has been working round the clock to serve as many people affected by pandemic.  Ziqitza has managed over 1 million calls across several states in concordance with the Coronavirus and has handled close to 1 lakh COVID patients in its state of the art ambulances. All of this has been achieved in the last six months and Ziqitza Healthcare ltd was awarded the gold award under the category of COVID social impact business in the 4th CSR Health Awards 2020. Read more about Ziqitza here.

However, only good emergency services can’t bring down Corona on its own, doctors need to be equipped with a powerful but safe vaccine. So what is India’s position in the race for a Coronavirus vaccine?

Well, there are 3 vaccine contenders that can come out on top which are namely:

1.    Bharat Biotech

2.    Zydus Cadila Ltd

3.    The Serum Institute Of India

 

The Bharat Biotech vaccine is indigenously developed and is in phase I and phase II human clinical trials.

The Zydus Cadila Ltd vaccine has been developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and this vaccine is also in phase I and II human clinical trials.

The third vaccine that is being tested by The Serum Institute Of India developed by Oxford University has been cleared for phase II and phase III human clinical trials. The institute based in Pune and founded by Cyrus Poonawalla is the largest producer of vaccines by dose and had started the trials but stopped due to an unexplained illness in a patient on whom the vaccine was being tested. This is the drug that is the top contender in the world to become the Coronavirus vaccine.

So far we have mentioned a lot about vaccines and the companies behind them and for which phase have they been cleared for, but what do these different phases mean?

Phase I

Phase I of any vaccine trial starts with the drug being administered on a very small group of people. The average timeline for phase I trials is about 3 months. If sufficiently positive results are shown by the vaccine, it is approved for phase II. The dosage that is given for phase I is a sub-therapeutic dose.

Phase II

The phase I approved vaccine is then tested out on a larger scale of about 100-300 people. This is to test out the effects of the vaccine in a not-so-concentrated population.

A vaccine must have 3 things that work for it- no adverse or common reactions in a substantial population of the patients, how safe it is, and of course does it work against the disease or not.

That’s why in phase II, the candidate vaccine is tested for these 3 qualities:

●     Reactogenicity

●     Immunogenicity

●     Safety

When cleared for all of the above points, the vaccine then moves to a large scale testing i.e phase III.

Although phase II takes up a lot of time, this period has been shortened due to the adverse effect that the Coronavirus is having on everything. The Oxford University vaccine took 3 months to get approved and the Moderna vaccine was cleared for trials in just 63 days.

Phase III

If a vaccine has entered phase III, it has established that it can work under controlled conditions and has some beneficial effects. Despite all of that, a vaccine needs to be tested on a large scale level to figure out its effects on a large population.

In phase III up to 3 thousand people are monitored on the drug and its effects are noted. Phase III is mainly performed to determine the safety and therapeutic effect of the vaccine. That’s why the dosage is given as a therapeutic dose.

These three phases are what mainly determine the efficacy of the vaccine and whether it will be sent for mass production for the public or not. There is also a phase IV where the after-effects of the vaccine upon releasing to the general public are noted.

Rest assured due to many Indian vaccines being in upper phases and one being in phase III, if a vaccine is developed in the coming months then the government has promised that it will reach every household of India. Poonawalla’s company has stated that they are capable of making 100 million doses per cycle and will ensure no shortage is faced.

All we can do now is sit tight and do as much as we can to make things easier for our researchers and try to curb the spread of the virus.

Ziqitza believes that we should make every effort to stop the spread of the virus until the vaccine is fully developed, so we have launched an additional 77 ambulances for the 108 emergency helpline in Punjab in public private partnership with the state government. Ziqitza Healthcare will be responsible for operating the CDC (control and dispatch center) in Punjab and all ambulances will be equipped with GPS so that they are easier to locate and dispatch towards the site of the emergency.

These services provided by Ziqitza Limited under the NHM (National Health Mission) will be free not only for Punjab but also for the other states that Ziqitza Healthcare operates in like Odisha, Madhya Pradesh. Overall in the 16 states including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Sikkim, NCR and many more. Ziqitza operate over 3,000 ambulances and will continue to expand its services across more states. Till date it has served over 25 million people in India.

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