Hyderabad: The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV) on Wednesday said the first indigenous developed Covid vaccine ‘Covaxin’ can effectively neutralize the ‘double mutant’ Covid variant, which is coupled to the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.
“ICMR-NIV was recently successful in isolating and cultivating the double mutant strain B.1.617 of SARS CoV-2 that has been identified in certain regions of India and several other countries. It was found that Covaxin also effectively neutralizes the double mutant strain, ‘the ICMR said on Wednesday.
In a series of tweets, the top research institute, which worked with NIV on Bharat Biotech to develop Covaxin, said that “NIV also showed the neutralization potential of Covaxin against the British and Brazilian variants”.
The researchers from NIV, Pune, have already isolated and grown several variants of SARS-CoV-2 in India, including B.1.1.7 (British variant), B.1.1.28 (Brazilian variant) and B. 1.351 (South African variant).
Source: Telangana Today