The Serum Institute of India has developed the first indigenously developed vaccine for pneumonia disease that Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan can launch next week and after that, it will be available in the market.
Sources said on Wednesday that the vaccine will be much cheaper than the vaccines currently being provided by two foreign companies. India's drug regulator allowed the vaccine 'Pneumococcal Polysaccharide Conjugate' to market in July itself, after reviewing data from the first, second, and third stages of the clinical trial of the vaccine obtained from a Pune-based institute.
The Ministry of Health had earlier reported that the vaccine enhances immunity to the disease caused by 'Streptococcus pneumonia' in infants. The Serum Institute has conducted clinical trials of the first, second, and third stages of the vaccine in India and the African nation of Gambia. Official sources said, "This is the first indigenously developed vaccine in the field of pneumonia."
Sources said the vaccine would be more affordable than Pfizer's NYSE PFE and GlaxoSmithKline's LSE GSK. In a letter to the Health Minister, Prakash Kumar Singh, Under-Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs at the Serum Institute, said, "It has always been our endeavor to fulfill the Prime Minister's dream under the Vocal for Local and Make in India for the world."
He wrote, 'Moving towards the call of self-reliant India of the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi), we have taken a historic mile by developing India's first global-class pneumonia vaccine and taking Indian license for it during the lockdown of the Kovid-19 epidemic. Stones have been installed. ”According to UNICEF figures, pneumonia kills more than one lakh children in the age group of zero to five every year in India.