Can re-engineer Covaxin to beat South African variant: Bharat Biotech

As news of mutations in the Sars-CoV-2 virus in different countries surfaces, Indian vaccine maker Bharat Biotech said it can re-engineer the Covaxin in 15 days to neutralise the South African variant, provided it gets the isolated strain from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). 

Krishna Ella (pictured), chairman and managing director (MD) of Bharat Biotech, said, “If ICMR isolates the South African strain, we can easily re-engineer the Covaxin to neutralise the South African strain in 15 days. One just has to switch the strain to get a new version of the vaccine.”

He said public-private partnerships will only speed up the process. 

Ella pointed out that the highest mutations are expected in ribonucleic acid viruses. Mutation is the only way a virus can thrive; it is its evolutionary process. 

Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech is readying to produce 40 million doses a month. Two Biosafety Level (BSL) 3 facilities (which can deal with deadly and contagious viruses) have been set up. A third is likely to be ready by the end of this week. “With three BSL 3 facilities, we can manufacture 40 million doses per month soon,” said Ella. 

Other vaccine makers, such as Hyderabad-based Biological E, too, have started working on different strains. Mahima Datla, MD of Biological E, said the technology used to counter different strains is still not clear — it can be a booster dose, a new-generation vaccine or a combination with the current version of the vaccine. 

Krishna Ella, chairman and managing director (MD) of Bharat Biotech

The apex research institute of India, ICMR, has already put in place a mechanism to track and isolate different strains entering India. 

Nivedita Gupta, head of the virology unit at ICMR, informed that after the UK variant surfaced around December 2020, the Government of India put together a structured mechanism to have an Indian Sars-CoV-2 genomic surveillance consortium spearheaded by the National Centre for Disease Control. It has partnered nine government departments, including the Department of Biotechnology. 

“A structured plan for sequencing has been put in place from samples collected from international travellers entering India. We are trying to have as many virus isolates as possible from the different strains entering the country. With a resurgence of cases in Maharashtra and Kerala, we are picking up samples from hotspots and sequencing them,” she added. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to come out with a standardised nomenclature on how to name the variants of interest and impact. “We do not want them to be named by countries where they are detected. Most mutations do not have much impact on mortality,” said WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan, adding that the nomenclature may be out on Tuesday. 

Swaminathan emphasised the need to have a global database on this and identify the mutations of consequence globally. “We are setting up a committee that will look into this and the vaccine changes,” she said. 

She added: “We have a system operating for influenza for many years. We need to have a similar system in place for the coronavirus, too, as it does appear that some of these mutations are able to reduce the efficacy of the vaccine.” 

WHO releases details on dominant influenza strains every year, which can be used to develop the flu shots. 

WHO is also working on gathering data from countries on the clinical as well epidemiological consequences of these variations.