Nearly 10 months after Prime Minister Narendera Modi launched the ‘Made In India’ Rotavac, the indigenously developed rotavirus vaccine will be introduced for the first time in the country’s universal immunisation programme from January next year.
In the first phase, four States — Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh — will be covered.
Rotavirus is a common virus that causes diarrhoea among infants and children throughout the world. In India, at least 1,00,000 infant die due to rotavirus diarrhoea, while globally it claims over 450,000 lives annually.
The Rotavirus vaccine introduced in the national programme has been developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech. Around 30 lakh kids are targeted to be covered in the first phase in the four States. “One dose at the age of one-and-a-half year, two-and-a-half-year and then at the age of three-and-a-half-year will be administered under the programme, a senior official told The Pioneer.
Depending on the response, the vaccine will be further introduced in the other part of the country.
“The Rotavirus vaccine is already available in the market in private sector. Foreign companies currently sell Rotavirus vaccines in India at `1,100 per dose. But the Bharat Bio-tech will provide the vaccine at a low price, under Rs 70 per dose for the national programme,” said the official.
Incidentally, Bharat Bio-tech was the only company which had applied for the tender floated by the Government for the vaccine. “Though Pune-based Serum Institute of India too was keen to participate, as it had no licence, it couldn’t participate in the tender process,” the official added.
During the launch Krishna Ella, chairman and managing director of Bharat Biotech, had said they realised a dream by bringing out the first made in India molecule. Our vaccine is affordable, safe and effective, besides being cross-protective against a variety of Rotavirus strains, he had said
The company has an installed capacity of 300 million doses annually in Genome Valley in Hyderabad and plans to expand it to 500 million doses per year.
“During trials, Rotavac was found to be safe and effective in the prevention of Rotavirus diarrhea and reducing hospitalisation due to diarrhea. Results from the pivotal phase-III clinical trials were published in lancet during 2014,” Dr Ella said.
The vaccine has been developed under public-private partnership between Bharat Bio-tech and a host of national and international research institutes like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences , Department of Biotechnology, the Gates Foundation, Programme for Appropriate Technologies in Health, Centers for Disease Control and others.