Serum Institute Seeks Emergency Nod For COVID-19 Vaccine Covishield: Here's How Soon Indians Might Get A Shot

Serum Institute of India has applied for emergency use authorisation for the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. This comes against the backdrop of growing hopes that a successful vaccine might be rolled out in as early as coming weeks.

Moneycontrol News

Dec 7, 2020 / 06:49 PM IST

Representative Image

Serum Institute of India on December 6 applied for emergency use authorisation for the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, thus becoming the first indigenous company to apply to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) seeking clearance for a vaccine in the country.

This comes against the backdrop of growing hopes that a successful vaccine might be rolled out in as early as coming weeks. In fact, in the United Kingdom, the first 50 National Health Service (NHS) hospitals are gearing up for what the UK government has described as the "biggest immunisation programme in history".

That, however, is the UK. What about India? Now that SII has applied for emergency use, when are Indians likely to finally get Covishield, as the vaccine is called?

Read: Serum Institute to focus on supplying coronavirus drug to India first

Is there a fixed date when we can expect a vaccine?

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

Show