New Delhi: Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin will work against all Covid-19 mutations says, Dr V. Ravi, former dean, basic sciences, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS). It is a broad spectrum vaccine unlike other vaccines that would need to be tweaked, he added.
According to him, all the “other platforms, which use either subunits (of the virus) or viral vectors but not the whole virus, such as Pfizer, Moderna, Sputnik, AstraZeneca-University of Oxford, won’t work against the mutated virus and may need tweaking”.
“The vaccine is a wholly inactivated virus — that is an entire dead virus whereas other vaccines use some part of the virus. The experience shows that the platform of killed or inactivated viruses have higher chances of generating immune response even when the virus mutates,” said Ravi, who is the nodal officer for genetic confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 virus in Karnataka.
Dr Ravi also represents India on the international scientific advisory board of Russia’s Sputnik vaccine.
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