India’s home grown COVID-19 vaccine – Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin has been “found to neutralise” the B.1.617 variant or the Indian double mutant strain.
This was stated by Chief Medical Adviser of the White House – Dr Anthony Fauci.
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“Now, this is something where we’re still gaining data on a daily basis. But the most recent data was looking at convalescent sera of COVID-19 cases in people who received the vaccine used in India, the Covaxin. And it was found to neutralise the 617 variant,” Dr Anthony Fauci said.
“So, despite the real difficulty that we’re seeing in India, vaccination could be a very, very important antidote against this,” Dr Fauci added.
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“So, I’ll stop there with the final statement. The one thing you can gather from everything I’ve said: that it’s very important to get vaccinated.”
The New York Times on Tuesday said Covaxin works by teaching the immune system to make antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
Covaxin uses dead viruses and works by teaching the immune system to make antibodies against the coronavirus.
Covaxin was developed by Bharat Biotech in partnership with National Institute of Virology and the India Counci for Medical Research.
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Covaxin was approved for emergency use on January 3.
Trial results later showed the vaccine has an efficacy of 78 per cent.