India prepares to develop any kind of vaccine within 100 day
1 min read 27 Mar 2023, 11:53 PM ISTAlongside, DBT, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are readying laboratories in various regions so that whenever an epidemic takes place samples can be sent there quickly without any approval process.
PremiumNew Delhi: India is working on a pandemic preparedness program that will enable it to develop any kind of vaccine within 100 days. The Ind- Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) program has been initiated by the department of biotechnology.
Alongside, DBT, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) are readying laboratories in various regions so that whenever an epidemic takes place samples can be sent there quickly without any approval process.
“DBT has initiated CEPI program. We have urged CEPI that whatever call they would give internationally, we would amplify in India to support it and develop a vaccine against any virus circulating across the world. The whole idea is that can we develop a technology or a method so that within 100 days a vaccine can be ready in India," Rajesh Gokhale, Union secretary of department of biotechnology, said in an interview.
“This requires huge capacity building. So, we are setting up all the platforms which are required for testing and validation of a sample. For instance, we need space for bio-essays validation—a comprehensive process to validate a sample. So we are strengthening our system at the backend," said Gokhale.
To be sure, this is at a conceptual stage so far. India has a proven track record in large-scale manufacturing of generics and vaccines. Its efforts to develop a vaccine from scratch is more recent -- something that needs both high-tech capability and huge amounts of scientific research and development funding.
While India has around 80 BSL-3 laboratories, most of the laboratories receive samples for testing from far off places. The biggest challenge is to manage and maintain these labs as a single BSL-3 lab requires consumables--primers, probes, reagents, PPE kits, testing kits etc. worth ₹10 lakh per month.
“Our government is aiming for “One Nation One Health". The biggest thing we are working on is how we can prepare ourselves for the future. We just held a meeting with ICMR, DGHS, ICAR to be able to say how many BSL-3 we have in the country to map them out and identify around 15 to 20 BSL-3 labs and equip them with the latest infrastructure and equipment like primers and RT-PCR testing facility."
