India created a breakthrough in Typhoid Vaccine. Image Courtesy – YouTube
Bharat Biotech of Hyderabad, India, has created a new typhoid conjugate vaccine that has been clinically tested for application in children aged a minimum of 6 months old. The company, Bharat Biotech, was pre-qualified by the WHO in December 2017, and has created the medicine in such a way that the medicine will act on children from 6 months old up to 65 years old adults.
The previous Typhoid medicines were applicable to children of minimum 2 years old and above. But this medicine will give everybody long-term protection against Typhoid fever.
Founder and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech, Dr Krishna Ella, stated that his company has not only done clinical trials in India, but it also took a ‘human challenge study’ in Oxford.
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Around 10,000 babies were tested in India, along with adults, adolescents, and 5-year-old children were carefully tested step by step. In Oxford, the volunteers had to drink a high concentration of bacteria during the trial – almost a million bacteria (parts per million) in a flask of water. Selective groups were given conjugate vaccine, older polysaccharide vaccines and placebo, respectively, opting for a detailed research report. The Founder and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech, Dr. Krishna Ella needed to prove that their vaccine worked. This research was organised by ‘human challenge’ an organisation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates.
The vaccine by Bharat Biotech proved to be 87% successful in that challenge – published by the world’s oldest and best-known medical journal, ‘The Lancet’, and has been recommended by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (WHO-SAGE) of World Health Organisation.
The vaccine of Bharat Biotech has drawn the attention of the international vaccine alliance, GAVI. It has reserved $85 million to acquire the vaccine to make it available to GAVI-supported countries.
The vaccine is helping the people to fight against typhoid throughout the world. Though, it has been made by an Indian company, it has been supported by the international medical organisations, and above all, thanks to the medical volunteers who swallowed live bacteria to prove its effectiveness. People around the world will be grateful to them.
