Covaxin, India’s home-grown vaccine against COVID-19, has been found to neutralise the 617 variant of the deadly virus, White House chief medical adviser and America’s top pandemic expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said.
Fauci was speaking to reporters during a conference call on Tuesday.
“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 and people who received the vaccine used in India, the Covaxin. It was found to neutralise the 617 variants,” he said.
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“So, despite the real difficulty that we’re seeing in India, vaccination could be a very, very important antidote against this,” Fauci added.
India’s home-grown vaccine
The vaccine was developed by Bharat Biotech in partnership with National Institute of Virology and the Indian Council of Medical Research, Covaxin was approved for emergency use on January 3. Trial results later showed the vaccine has an efficacy of 78 per cent.
‘The world has failed India’: Top US adviser Dr Fauci
Fauci, while speaking to The Guardian, said: “The only way that you’re going to adequately respond to a global pandemic is by having a global response, and a global response means equity throughout the world,” Fauci said. He added, “And that’s something that, unfortunately, has not been accomplished.”
Dr Fauci also added, “So I think that’s a responsibility that the rich countries need to assume. Right now it’s a terrible tragic situation where people are dying because there’s not enough oxygen, where there’s not enough hospital beds. We have to try, looking forward, to get as much equity when it comes to public health issues as we possibly can.”
The top US health adviser who has been spearheading the country’s battle against Covid-19 added that “we are all in this together”.
On Wednesday, India recorded 360,960 new cases of COVID-19, setting a global record the largest single-day surge recorded in the world so far. According to the Indian Health Ministry, total fatalities in India had crossed 200,000 to stand at 201,187.
(With Agencies Inputs)
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