30 groups in India working on coronavirus vaccine, 20 at 'good pace'

ICMR conducting study on presence of antibodies in people, results next week

India will have capacity to make half a million diagnostic test kits a day by July, Empowered Group-1 Chairman V K Paul looking at medical emergency management said on Thursday.

"Twenty companies are making these kits in India, and once our requirements are met they can send these kits to other countries," Paul said.

He said eight vaccine candidates being worked on, of which four were ahead of others. Also, the national science lab is testing six vaccine candidates, of which two-three are showing promise.  There are 30 groups in India that are working towards developing vaccines, of which 20 are keeping 'good pace'. One of the vaccines being developed on the backbone of a flu vaccine will be in the preclinical stage by October, Principal Scientific Advisor K Vijay Raghavan said while highlighting that India's vaccine manufacturing capabilities were world class.
 

The world is investing in 100 vaccines simultaneously and the effort of developing a vaccine within a year requires that a lot of parallel processes need to be done, he said. "We have to go fast on the regulatory process without compromising on quality, expand manufacturing without disturbing standard immunization programmes, and develop distribution systems...All this will cost $2-3 billion," Raghavan said.

He said the vaccine was not a switch that would be available to everyone and logistics of making the vaccine accessible to everyone would be a challenge. "Youngest to oldest will need a vaccine. Who should be given it first? How to make a protective ring by giving it to some kind of persons?" Raghavan said.
 

India is also part of global consortium to ensure there is equity of access and risk mitigation since many countries will stockpile vaccines in advance.
 

There are four categories on vaccines that are under development: the mRNA vaccine which uses the genetic component of the virus itself, the standard vaccine using a weak version of the virus, third uses some other virus' backbone and the last is the one where protein of the virus is made in the lab.

India is also collaborating on global vaccine development, some of which is being led here. "First vaccine is not the only vaccine there will be...there will be second, third which might be better than earlier version," Raghavan said.

The Indian Council of Medical Research is conducting a serological survey to study the presence of antibodies in the population, in 69 districts and the result will be known by next week, he said.

Private Covid testing underutilised
 

A study conducted by the Healthcare Federation of India (Nathealth), an association of leading private hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, and medical technology companies has found that private testing capacity is being underutilised in the country.

A survey conducted among 50 private laboratories across 13 Indian states showed that while the public sector is running at nearly full capacity, the private sector is being utilised only at 25-30 per cent. 

The surveyed labs are currently working only single shifts, doing cumulative 5,000 tests per day with 17 labs doing less than 100 tests per day and six labs not doing any testing at all. “Improving existing capacity utilisation to 80 per cent will increase testing to 14,000 tests per day assuming 1 shift operation. Additionally, increasing shifts to two will increase testing by 30,000 tests per day,” it said.
 

The current testing capacity in India stands at 150,000-170,000 tests per day with the public sector capacity at 110,000 tests per day and private sector capacity at 60,000 tests per day.  According to the study, a large portion of this is driven by the public sector, which conducts around 75,000-80,000 tests, while the private sector conducts 15,000-20,000 tests a day. “Private labs with support from central and state governments could quickly ramp up testing up to 4-6 times with double shifts,” the study said.

It also found that the lab operators were facing on-the-ground operational issues. Fifty-four per cent faced difficulties with guidelines and procedures that the survey suggested may be solved by standardisation of forms and simplified approval processes for sample collection.
 

The respondents to the survey highlighted that support is needed across the Centre and state governments to ramp up testing. "There is a potential to increase the testing capacity by 6 times through better utilisation and two-shift operations in private labs," the survey said.