New Delhi: Bharat Biotech International Pvt. Ltd on Wednesday unveiled two vaccine candidates to protect humans against the outbreak of the mosquito-borne Zika virus that may cause birth defects when pregnant women are infected.
Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech claimed it is probably the first in the world to file for a global patent for Zika vaccine candidates which it calls Zikavac.
The two candidates include an inactivated vaccine that has reached the stage of pre-clinical testing in animals, and a recombinant vaccine.
“Currently, our efforts are towards scale-up and characterization of the vaccine product. Our interest in Zika virus, an obscure virus when we started the project a year ago, was that the clinical features at an early stage of infection are indistinguishable from that of dengue and chikungunya,” said the company in a press release.
“The first thing is to be prepared for the worst,” said Krishna Ella, chairman of vaccine maker Bharat Biotech, adding the company hopes to announce the arrival of Zikavac to the world as early as possible.
