Community transmission limited only to some States, says Vardhan
| Date :19-Oct-2020 |
NEW DELHI :
UNION Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Sunday admitted that India is in the community transmission stage. However, it is limited only to certain districts and States. The statement has come against the backdrop of West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s admission on Monday that the community transmission of COVID-19 has started in the State. Vardhan’s statement was a response to a query made during his weekly webinar, ‘Sunday Samvaad’ where he interacts with his social media audience. The query was “Mamata Banerjee has said there are instances of community transmission in the State. Are there other States with community transmission as well?”
To this, the Minister responded, “In different pockets across various States, including West Bengal, community transmission is expected to occur, especially in dense areas. However, this is not happening across the country. It is limited to certain districts occurring in limited States.” Vardhan said that as of now no mutation of coronavirus has been detected in India. He clarified that the phase III clinical trial is ongoing with thousands of participants, sometimes even close to 30,000 to 40,000 participants. Vardhan informed that Bharat Biotech will develop an intranasal vaccine for Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Vardhan said there is no evidence that can validate claims on global multiple focal points for the COVID-19 outbreak, amid China claiming that the coronavirus broke out simultaneously in several countries last year. “It (Bharat Biotech) has entered into an agreement with Washington University’s School of Medicine under which the company will conduct trials, produce and market an intranasal vaccine for the COVID-19,” Vardhan told his social media audience.
The Minister also informed that the Phase 1 trials of the vaccine candidate will take place in St Louis University’s vaccine and treatment evaluation unit while further stages of the trials will be conducted in India. “Bharat Biotech on receipt of regulatory approval will pursue further stages of clinical trials in India,” he added. “Codagenix is collaborating with the Serum Institute of India to develop CDX-005, which is the company’s intranasal, live-attenuated vaccine candidate for SARS-CoV-2.
The preclinical animal studies have been successfully completed, and Codagenix expects to initiate a Phase 1 first-in-human clinical trial in the UK by the end of 2020,” he said. CDX-005 is a single dose intranasal vaccine made with a live attenuated version of the virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has cataloged 169 candidate vaccines for the COVID-19. The vast majority of these use a dead virus, genetic material from the virus, or components of the virus, such as the spike protein. Only Codagenix and two other developers have used a live attenuated version of the virus.