Winner of the Vaccine Race: Covishield Vaccine or Covaxin?

Hello everyone,

            Most of us are eagerly waiting for the vaccine of coronavirus. A piece of good news is that the coronavirus vaccine is now ready. I was waiting to write this line since when I started writing articles. It is today that I am getting a chance to write about the coronavirus vaccine. As I have mentioned earlier in my articles that the vaccine of Pfizer and BioNTech has got approval already from the British government. In India, two vaccines were in the race and under human trials. Those vaccines were the Covishield vaccine and Covaxin from Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech International respectively.

Covishield Vaccine

            The Covishield vaccine left Pune for Delhi and many other cities. The Covishield vaccine is also called ChAdOx1 nCov-19 Corona Virus Vaccine (Recombinant). One dose (0.5 ml) of this Covishield vaccine contains 5×10¹⁰  virus particles. The Covishield vaccine is a colorless to slightly brown solution as per the manual released by Serum Institute of India. The two doses of the Covishield vaccine will be given and everyone is advised to complete vaccination after the first dose. The second dose should be given after 4-6 weeks of the first dose as stated in the manual. Two separate doses of 0.5 ml each will be given for vaccination in India.

            The vaccine has developed using the chimpanzee adenovirus vector which encodes for SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein. The production of the Covishield vaccine is carried out in genetically modified human embryonic kidney cells.

            Pune Airport tweeted about the dispatching of the Covishield vaccine. Under tight security, three trucks left the Serum Institute carrying 478 boxes of the vaccine. A traditional ‘Puja’ was performed and coconut breaking was done as per our traditions.

Ready get set go!
Stand by India!
The vaccine to kill the disease is being loaded onto the aircrafts for distribution all over the country now.@AAI_Official @aairedwr pic.twitter.com/5lY9i4Tjdk

— PuneAirport (@aaipunairport) January 12, 2021

            The vaccines will be sent to different cities via flights with the help of different airlines. The airlines like SpiceJet, IndiGo Airlines, GoAir, and Air India are involved in the vaccine consignment delivery to different cities. Mumbai will receive the vaccine delivery by road whereas nine flights with 56.5 lakh doses will leave for Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Chennai, Guwahati, Shillong, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Patna, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, and Bhubaneswar.

            The central government has ordered 1.01 crore doses to Serum Institute at the price of Rs.200 per dose. Along with GST, the central government will buy the Covishield vaccine at Rs.210 per dose. Right now, the Covishield vaccine is the cheapest in the world.

            The vaccination in India will happen at a large level. The Covishield vaccine will be given first to the 3 crore frontline corona warriors for free. After that, the Covishield vaccine will be given to individuals having 50+ age and to those who have weak health (around 27 crore people). However, It is not clear that if the government will charge anything to other citizens for vaccine or not! The program of vaccination in India will start on 16th January, Saturday.

Pfizer and BioNTech

            The American company Pfizer and German company BioNTech formerly announced that they will be able to produce 1.3 billion doses in 2021. But now they have reestablished their target to the production of 2 billion doses at the end of this year.

A single dose vaccine

            The Stanford University of America is working on the development of a vaccine having enough effect with a single dose. Most of the vaccines that got approval for vaccination are of two doses. The experiment of this vaccine was carried out on mice and have shown hopeful results. The approval for human trials for this vaccine will be given shortly.

Covaxin

            The DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India) approved Phase I and Phase II human clinical trials which happened in July 2020. After successful Phase I and Phase II trials, DCGI approved Phase III clinical trials in 26,000 volunteers across the country.

Conclusion: Coronavirus has changed our entire life and schedule. These vaccines are those one ray of hope which may dispel the coronavirus soon. All the eyes are on the Covishield vaccine and Covaxin. Let’s see what happens as the vaccine comes into the market.