In a major scientific breakthrough, the department of biotechnology and Bharat Biotech announced the discovery of India’s first indigenously-developed Rotavirus vaccine to fight severe forms of diarrhoea that kill over 100,000 Indian children every year.
The low-cost vaccine will be sold at `54 per dose with Bharat Biotech likely to file for a patent with the Drugs Controller-General of India in July.
Once this is granted, the vaccine is likely to reach developing countries in Asia and Africa too.
Phase 3 of the clinical trials, covering 6,799 six-week-old babies from poorer families across three centres in New Delhi, Pune and Vellore, have been successfully completed. “Fatalities among these babies were seven per 1,000, against a ‘normal’ death rate of 30 per 1,000,” said Dr M.K. Bhan, former secretary of the department, who was associated with this project for 15 years.
“These trials saw a 56 per cent cut in severe diarrhoea cases in the first year,” Dr Bhan said. The vaccine originated from a weakened rotavirus strain isolated from an Indian child admitted at New Delhi’s AIIMS in 1985-86.
The project was conducted in collaboration with the US National Institutes of Health, Stanford University and the US Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta.