India is currently reviving from the threat of th esecond wave of Covid-19 with reportedly an effective mass vaccination drive. Another vaccine is on the way to enter the list of Covid-19 vaccines, which can prove to a game-changer for India to tackle the third wave of the pandemic.
A ‘thermotolerant’ or ‘warm vaccine,’ is being developed by Mynvax start-up, incubated by the Indian Institute of Science’s Society for Innovation and Development, that can benefit India to ramp up the vaccination drive to curb the spread of the third wave of Covid-19.
"The vaccine can be stored at room temperature (30 degrees Celsius), which enables the government to scale-up its distribution," said the manufacturing unit.
In India, jabs of Covishield and Covaxin are provided to the public along with several others. However, these vaccines require cold chain storage capacities. Before kicking off the vaccination drive, the GoI, strengthened its cold storage capacities, to safely provide temperature-sensitive jabs to the public.
The vaccines available now are required to be transported and distributed between 2 degree Celsius and 8 degree Celsius, called the cold chain. The WHO has said that most Covid-19 vaccines, even those in development, need to be refrigerated at temperatures considerably below 0 degree Celsius.
Notably, India is a country with warm temperatures, and a
vaccine that is tolerant of warm temperatures could help escalate access of the
jabs to the public.
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According to the scientists who developed the Mynvax vaccine can be stored at 100 degree Celsius for 90 minutes, at 70 degree Celsius for nearly 16 hours, and 37 degree Celsius for more than a month.
Julien Potet, policy adviser (vaccines) of Médecins Sans Frontières’ Access Campaign told BBC in a report that such a vaccine “can be particularly helpful for mass vaccination campaigns when hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses need to be transported to several vaccination points within a short period".
Notably, the vaccine in mice sera (blood samples) showed efficacy against Covid-19 variants of concern, including the Delta variant.
The firm has now also signed an agreement to raise $4.2 million (31 crores) in a Series A round of funding headed by Accel to bring the ‘thermotolerant’ Covid vaccine to market.
How it will help India break the chain of transmission?
Though India’s vaccine cold storage capacity is one of the world’s largest, at approximately 40 million tonnes, it fails to meet the international hygiene standards. However, vaccines can readily lose their efficacy when exposed to higher temperatures, due to which is required to be protected from accidental freezing during transport as well as interruptions in the cold chain caused by excessive heat.
If the warm vaccine gets nod to administer in India, it will prove to be a boon for the millions of frontline and healthcare workers involved in all parts of the vaccine drive.
Walk-in freezers, ice-lined refrigerators, refrigerated trucks, coolant packs such as dry ice, and cold boxes are used to store and keep vaccines chilled during last-mile distribution, which would not be needed with such a vaccine.