GEMCOVAC-19, India’s first mRNA Covid-19 vaccine

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What is GEMCOVAC-19?

• It is India’s first indigenously developed mRNA Covid vaccine and only third mRNA vaccine to be approved for Covid-19 in the world after Pfizer and Moderna.

• It was developed at Pune’s Gennova Biopharmaceuticals.

• Gemcovac’s 43 lakh doses have already been cleared by the Central Drugs Laboratory (CDL) in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh.
• It is a two-dose vaccine to be administered intramuscularly 28 days apart.
• As mRNA vaccines are required to be kept at sub-zero temperatures, it was a mammoth task for Gennova scientists to develop a thermostable mRNA Covid-19 vaccine.
• The new vaccine can now be stored at the temperature of a standard medical refrigerator.

How does mRNA vaccine work?

• As the Covid-19 pandemic spread, an mRNA vaccine candidate was the first to enter human trials globally. 
• Unlike vaccines that put a weakened or inactivated virus in ones body to activate an immune response, the two Covid-19 vaccines named Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna used messenger RNA or mRNA to deliver a message to your immune system.

• Basically, the technology uses genetically engineered mRNA to instruct cells to make the S-protein found on the surface of the Covid-19 virus. 
• According to scientists, after vaccination, the muscle cells begin making S-protein pieces and displaying them on cell surfaces. This causes the body to create antibodies.
• But these vaccines have to be stored at sub-zero temperatures as mRNA is fragile and breaks down easily.

• Unlike in the West, where the vaccine has to be stored at sub-zero temperatures, the challenge in India was to be able to store the vaccine between 2-8 degree Celsius. 

• GEMCOVAC-19 can now be stored at the temperature of a standard medical refrigerator.

• The conversion from liquid to powder form of the vaccine takes place via Lyophilisation; this is freeze-drying, a process where the water is removed from the product after it is frozen and placed under a vacuum allowing the ice to change directly from solid to vapor without passing through a liquid phase.

Further reading: https://journalsofindia.com/mrna-vaccine/

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