Covaxin is effective against both Indian and UK strain of COVID-19 : ICMR

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New Delhi: The UK strain of COVID-19 and the strain circulating in India can be effectively tackled by Covaxin, the vaccine prepared by Hyderabad’s Bharat Biotech, said Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Speaking at the health ministry’s official press briefing, Balaram Bhargava, Director General, ICMR said that the tests conducted by ICMR has found that Covaxin is effectively neutralising both UK strain and the Indian strain of COVID-19.

ICMR is the top body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research.

“We wanted to know whether current vaccines are working on UK strain or not. We had some international reports about some vaccines working. We looked at data of patients who were immunised with Covaxin, we took out their blood, extracted the serum & tested with the cultured virus” he said.

“We found that the neutralisation of UK strain was equivalent to Indian strains circulating in India. It’s a very reassuring news that UK variant can be tackled by this vaccine & although we are seeing more variants in world, at present in India this is the only variant” he added.

India is currently conducting the world’s largest covid vaccination programme and so far over 25 lakh doses of vaccines have been administered. 

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