Gagandeep Kang at CMC Hospital, Vellore.
| Photo Credit:
C. Venkatachalapathy
Even without missteps we have misinformation, warns the virologist, and any doubts can be blown up into larger conspiracy theories
A year after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which has claimed 1.8 million lives so far, scientists, manufacturers and drug regulators the world over have been speeding up the timelines for the development, testing and approval of vaccines for emergency use. Three safe and efficacious vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca have already been greenlighted.
In India, the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech has been working feverishly to develop and test a COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, that uses a time-tested inactivated vaccine platform; but the haste shown by the Indian drug regulator to approve it in the absence of efficacy data has taken the shine off an indigenously developed lifesaver. We speak to Gagandeep Kang, Professor of Microbiology at Christian Medical College, Vellore, who has extensive experience in vaccine research, about the rush to grant approval for the vaccine without efficacy data.