The price for the Oxford coronavirus vaccine will be around $3 per dose in low middle-income countries, according to report. This means Covishield, which is being manufactured by the Pune-based firm Serum Institute of India (SII), will cost around Rs 225 per dose in India.
Recently, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) has granted permission to SII to conduct phase 2/3 clinical trials of the vaccine developed by the Oxford University in India. The Oxford/AstraZeneca candidate, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is currently undergoing the late-stage, phase 3 trials in the UK and Brazil, and phase 1/2 trials in South Africa.
In a latest development, Serum Institute announced on Wednesday that it has signed a new landmark partnership with Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to accelerate the manufacturing and delivery process of up to 100 million doses of the vaccine for India and low-income countries.
The ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is being seen as one of the most promising vaccine candidates developed against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Results from the early human trials published in the medical journal The Lancet show the vaccine induces strong immune response with no safety concerns.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that six vaccine candidates against the novel coronavirus have entered the phase 3 trials. Apart from the Oxford/AstraZeneca’s vaccine, five other candidates that are currently in the phase 3 trials are from Moderna/NIAID, BioNTech/Fosun Pharma/Pfizer, Sinovac, Wuhan Institute of Biological Products/Sinopharm and Beijing Institute of Biological Products/Sinopharm. However, none has yet been approved for widespread use.
Source: Times Now
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