Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, India’s first indigenous vaccine to fight Covid-19, is effective against the Delta Plus (AY.1) variant of SARS-CoV2 virus, a new study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said. Despite a slight reduction in neutralisation of antibody titres, Covaxin is effective against Delta, AY.1 (Delta Plus) and B.1.617.3 variants, the study added.
Covaxin has been developed by the Hyderabad-based pharma major, in collaboration with ICMR. As per the website, when the vaccination was launched on January 16, just a little over 5 crore doses of Covaxin have been administered in the overall 45 crore immunisation so far. Majority has been contributed by Serum Institute of India, a Pune based vaccine manufacturer which is making Covi-shield.
So far 70 cases of the Delta Plus variant have been found by INSACOG, a group of 28 laboratories involved in genome sequencing. Delta Plus is a mutated form of the Delta variant, first discovered in India. It is characterised by increased transmissibility.
“Our research showed that Covaxin could still neutralise Delta, AY.1 and B.1.617.3 variants,” Dr Samiran Panda, head of epidemiology and communicable diseases, ICMR, according to reports.
The new ICMR-National Institute of Virology study — ‘Comparable neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Delta AY.1 and Delta in individuals sera vaccinated with BBV152’ — published as a pre-print on bioRxiv, said that Sera of vaccines among Covid naïve, recovered cases with full vaccination and breakthrough cases demonstrated 1.3, 2.5 and 1.9-fold reduction against Delta variant in comparison to B.1 variant respectively.
Lead author of the study, Dr Pragya Yadav said a minor reduction was observed in the neutralising antibody titer in Covid- 19
recovered cases, fully vaccinated and post immunised infected cases as compared to Covid-19 naive vaccinated individuals.
“However, with the observed high titers, the sera of individuals belonging to all the groups in the study would still neutralise the Delta, Delta AY.1 and B.1.617.3 variants effectively,” Dr Yadav said.
In July, the Hyderabad-based company released data from the final analysis of Covaxin and said that it demonstrated overall efficacy of 77.8 per cent against symptomatic infection. It also said that Covaxin has now received emergency use authorisations (EUAs) in 16 countries including, India, Philippines, Iran, Mexico, with EUAs in process in 50 countries worldwide.
In another development, Bharat Biotech said that Rotavac 5D, a variant of its Rotavac vaccine, has received “Prequalification” from the World Health Organisation (WHO).