For emergency use, Zydus Cadila's 'ZycoV-D' was approved. Can your child get it?

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ZyCoV-D vaccine: Can your child get it?

ZyCoV-D vaccine: Zydus Cadila's 3-dose vaccine 'ZyCoV-D' has finally got approval for emergency use by India's central drug authority. The vaccine is the world's first and India's indigenously developed DNA-based vaccine for Covid-19. The Ahmedabad-based company has targeted plans to manufacture 10-12 crore doses of ZyCoV-D annually.

Ever since vaccines were rolled out in the country for adults, there have been apprehensions around safeguarding children against the infectious virus. This has been a matter of concern for parents across India. Now, the question is: Can your child get the ZyCoV-D vaccine?

Yes, if your child is above 12 years of age, he/she will be able to take the vaccine. For the first time, apart from adults, adolescents in the age group of 12-18 years will get the vaccine shot in India. The details on the availability of the vaccine are yet to be announced. So far, only those who are 18 or above were eligible for vaccination against coronavirus.

Meanwhile, another vaccine from Gennova, which is an mRNA vaccine, vaccine candidate of Biological E and Novavax, which will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, are in the pipeline. Recently, AIIMS Director Dr. Randeep Guleria had said that data of phase two and three trials of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin on 2 to 18 years age group is expected by September.

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What is the efficacy of the ZyCoV-Dvaccine?

The Phase-III clinical trials were conducted in over 28,000 volunteers. The interim results of the trials showed primary efficacy of 66.6 percent for symptomatic RT-PCR positive cases. This has been the largest vaccine trial so far in India for Covid-19. The vaccine had already exhibited robust immunogenicity and tolerability and safety profile in the adaptive Phase I/II clinical trials carried out earlier. Both the Phase I/II and Phase III clinical trials have been monitored by an independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB).

How does it react to the body?

When infected, the 3-dose vaccine produces the spike protein of the SARS-CoV2 virus and elicits an immune response, which plays a pivotal role in protection from disease as well as virus clearance. The plug-and-play technology on which the plasmid DNA platform is based can be easily adapted to deal with mutations with the virus, such as those already occurring.

ZyCoV-D VACCINE - IN A NUTSHELL

ZyCov-D is an intradermal vaccine, which will be administered in three doses.
It will be applied using The PharmaJet needle free system, Tropis, which can also lead to a significant reduction in any kind of side effects.
ZyCoV-D is stored at 2-8 degree C but has shown good stability at temperatures of 25 degree C for at least three months. The thermostability of the vaccine will help in easy transportation and storage of the vaccine and reduce any cold chain breakdown challenges leading to vaccine wastage.
The plasmid DNA platform provides ease of manufacturing with minimal biosafety requirements (BSL-1).
Also being a plasmid DNA vaccine, ZyCoV-D doesn't have any problem associated with vector based immunity.
The plasmid DNA platform also allows generating new constructs quickly to deal with mutations in the virus, such as those already occurring.

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