COVID-19 vaccines India can add to its bouquet of boosters

As scientific evidence and availability of new or existing COVID-19 vaccines continue to increase, India may soon have more vaccines in its bouquet to be administered as booster doses. India's daily tally of COVID-19 cases is nearing 2 lakh and the government will soon consider booster dose for all adult population, officials in the Union Health Ministry told BusinessToday.In on Monday.
 
As of now, healthcare workers, frontline workers and those above 60 years of age with comorbidities can take third dose of the same COVID-19 vaccine, which they have already taken, as a precautionary or booster dose. Currently, the national COVID-19 vaccination program includes Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V vaccines. Going ahead, India may look at several COVID-19 vaccines as booster doses. 
 
Covaxin  
 
Covaxin maker Bharat Biotech on Saturday announced the results of the trial studying the immunogenicity and safety of Covaxin, a whole-virion inactivated COVID-19 vaccine, as a booster dose. The Hyderabad-based pharma company claimed that Covaxin is the first vaccine (in India) to report safety and immunogenicity results from a booster clinical trial. The analysis showed that six months after a two-dose Covaxin vaccination, series cell-mediated immunity and neutralising antibodies to both homologous (D614G) and heterologous strains (Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Delta plus) persisted above baseline, although the magnitude of the responses had declined, the company said in a statement. 

Furthermore, neutralising antibodies against homologous and heterologous SARS-CoV-2 variants increased 19 to 265 fold after the third dose. Booster BBV152 vaccination is safe and may be necessary to ensure persistent immunity to prevent breakthrough infections, it said. Dr. Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech, said that the trial results provided a strong foundation towards the company's goal to provide covaxin as a booster dose. 

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"More evidence is emerging for vaccines as booster doses. Currently the World Health Organization's recommendation is to provide same vaccines as booster and we are following it. mRNA vaccines are proving to be good as boosters. We would also be having mRNA vaccines available in India like Pfizer and Moderna, then our options of vaccines as booster doses will increase," a senior health ministry official said.  
 
Covovax 
 
India recently approved Covovax, a protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine developed by American biotechnology company Novavax, Inc. It will be manufactured and marketed in India by Serum Institute of India (SII).  
 
Corbevax 
 
Corbevax, another protein subunit vaccine, is developed by Texas Children's Hospital at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas and Dynavax Technologies, which is based in Emeryville California. It is licensed to Indian biopharmaceutical firm Biological E. Limited (BioE) for development and production.  
 
Sputnik light 
 
Sputnik Light is the first component (recombinant human adenovirus serotype number 26 (rAd26)) of Sputnik V -- the world's first registered vaccine against coronavirus. 

The Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia's sovereign wealth fund, has also pitched the one-shot Sputnik Light as a booster shot. The RDIF claimed that the one-shot Sputnik Light is a highly effective vaccine when used on a standalone basis as well as when applied as a booster. The latest findings by the Gamaleya Center based on data from 28,000 subjects in Moscow demonstrated that Sputnik Light vaccine when administered standalone has 70 per cent efficacy against infection from Delta variant during the first three months after vaccination. The vaccine is 75 per cent effective among subjects under the age of 60. Efficacy of Sputnik Light as a booster against Delta variant for other vaccines will be close to the efficacy against the Delta variant of Sputnik V vaccine -- over 83 per cent against infection and over 94 per cent against hospitalisation, it claimed. 
 
Janssen vaccine 
 
Though Johnson & Johnson's single-shot COVID-19 vaccine, developed by Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, is delayed in India, it may get entry into the country. The company recently announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) issued a 'Positive Opinion' for use of the company's COVID-19 vaccine as a booster for those aged 18 and older at least two months after primary vaccination with a single-shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and as a 'mix and match' booster following primary vaccination with an approved two-shot mRNA COVID-19 vaccine regimen (known as heterologous boosting). A single booster dose of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine may be administered at least two months after primary vaccination with the same vaccine. 

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