key: cord-342405-nsj9dh48
authors: Chakraborty, Chiranjib; Agoramoorthy, Govindasamy
title: India’s cost-effective COVID-19 vaccine development initiatives
date: 2020-10-20
journal: Vaccine
DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.10.056
sha: 
doc_id: 342405
cord_uid: nsj9dh48

nan

The creation of cost effective vaccine is fundamental for the effective mitigation of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. India is moving to achieve this target to meet the high demand to produce the cheapest vaccine against COVID-19. India also harbors over 1.3 billion people and many cannot afford a costly vaccine. In addition, millions of people who live across over 30 world's poorest countries will also expect the affordable low-cost vaccine.

India has a long history of vaccine production and the Haffkine Institute 1 for example has been recognized by the WHO as a prequalified vaccines producer before the country got Institute of India 5 has long history of producing vaccines against tetanus, influenza, rabies, measles, and mumps. It's currently collaborating with Codagenix to develop a vaccine, including live-attenuated vaccine against COVID-19. 6 Besides, it has a partnership with Codagenix, a New York based firm specialized on vaccines and the Oxford University to produce the COVID-19 vaccine. India also has a tie up with the Oxford University to produce the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine or ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. The Serum Institute has announced that it will produce the vaccine at low cost and it's registered for phases II and III clinical trials (NCT04400838, ClinicalTrials.gov). India has exported complex vaccines such as the penta-valent rotavirus vaccine before. 10 What's unique about India is that it has the expertise for low-cost per-unit vaccine production of vaccines. Due to the low cost vaccine making history, new products against COVID-19 will be of great use in over 30 low-income countries worldwide benefiting millions of people who cannot afford expensive vaccines. India has manufactured the oral polio vaccine and distributed freely across the country as part of the polio eradication initiative by the WHO.

Recently, India has requested the World Trade Organization to waive some provisions in the international agreements that regulate intellectual property rights, to speed up efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic and to make sure low-income countries such as India are not left behind. India is currently finalizing the electronic vaccine intelligence network or eVIN to provide real-time information on the stock and storage details on vaccines nationwide. The government has formed an expert committee to advice on the priorities of vaccine distribution throughout the country. Few months ago, the WHO has praised India's vaccine production capacity in a meeting of COVID-19. It's time for the developing world to collaborate with India to produce and distribute the cost-effective COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible.

No potential conflict of interest was declared by authors.

Writing-original draft, C.C; Editing, C.C, G.A; All authors have read and approved the final version of this manuscript.

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