EpicVacCorona: Second COVID-19 Vaccine approved by Russia

October 15, 2020

The Russian Authorities have approved a new COVID-19 vaccine called “EpicVacCorona”. It is a two shot vaccine.

Key Highlights

EpiVacCorona is a peptide-based vaccine. Sputnik V was the first vaccine developed by Russia. Russia is to conduct the vaccine trial of EpicVacCorona on 40,000 volunteers.

Clinical Trials

The first phase of the vaccine is to be held through open trials. It will include men and women of age 18 to 30 years. The second phase of the trial is placebo-controlled. It will include men and women of the age group 18 to 60 years.

India’s plan

India is to use more than one vaccine against COVID-19. Currently three COVID-19 vaccines are under trial in India. They are COVAXIN, ZyCoV D and the Oxford University Vaccines. India is to prioritise Occupational hazard and exposure risk factors while administering the vaccine.

The THSTI lab of India has been recognised under the Global Initiative of Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness for Innovation, CEPI. So far, laboratories from six countries were identified. The other five laboratories are from Canada, Italy, Netherlands, Britain, Bangladesh. THSTI is Translational Health Science and Technology Institute.
Also, India has framed a plan to store and administer the vaccines. In order to achieve this, the cold storage units have been identified and a team is working under a NITI Aayog member Dr Paul.

CEPI

The CEPI is a foundation that takes donations for vaccine research and projects. It focuses on “Blueprint Priority Diseases” of the World Health Organization. The following diseases have been included under Blueprint Priority Diseases