India’s First Pneumonia Vaccine Successfully Launched

A vaccine for infant pneumonia infections has been granted the permission to start market authorization in India. Until now, the demand for such vaccine was being fulfilled by licensed importers because all the manufacturers were based outside of India. There was not a single manufacturer of such vaccine in India. The name of the vaccine is Pneumosil.

 

Pneumonia, the lung infection commonly to be seen in infants younger than 2 and people over the age of 65.  It can happen to anyone, but these age groups are at higher risk because their immune systems might not be strong enough to fight it. There are distinct types of Pneumonia. Pneumonia and diarrhoea cause the most deaths in infants under five years.

 

Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd, Pune.

 

The clinical trials of the Pneumonia vaccine were started a long time ago.  It was introduced in a phased manner starting within the areas of Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh,  Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. According to the information provided on the clinical trials registry, the first phase of the trial was conducted in 2013, in 34 young Indian adult citizens. The second phase was conducted in 114 infants of 12-15 months. In 2017, the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine got included in India’s Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP).

The third phase of trials was conducted on 448 infants between the age of six to eight weeks old, which was completed in October in 2019.

Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. is currently the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer by the quantity or number of doses produced and sold worldwide. These vaccines include Polio vaccine, Rubella, Tetanus, Pertussis, Hib, r-Hepatitis B, Diphtheria, Measles, BCG vaccines.

Serum is also working on COVID-19 Vaccine along with The Oxford University. Serum Institute of India is potentially being called as the Jio of coronavirus vaccine deals.  AstraZeneca, A British Drug making company said it has partnered with Serum Institute of India, Pune to supply 1 billion doses of Oxford’s potential COVID-19 or corona virus vaccine to low and middle-income countries. As a part of this agreement, Serum will provide 400 million doses by the end of the year 2020. The significance of the partnership is that if all goes according to plan, millions of Indians will get their hands on COVID-19 vaccine shots produced by Serum well before the end of 2020.

Everyone of us these days is hoping that this pandemic ends soon. Many of the drug making companies are working towards the Aid of COVID-19 vaccine. Many other vaccine and treatment experiments are parallel to the corona times. Such an example is Pneumocil. The rest of us are best advised to follow the precautionary measures.