Ahmedabad-based pharmaceutical firm Zydus Cadila has requested emergency use approval for its ZyCoV-D three-dose COVID shot that is the world’s first Plasmid DNA vaccine.
Zydus claims its vaccine is 66.6% effective against symptomatic COVID cases and 100% for moderate disease. It also says the vaccine is safe for children between 12 and 18 years. But its trial data is not peer-reviewed yet.
The vaccine, which is in its second phase of trials, is a “plasmid DNA” vaccine that can be stored at 2-8 degree Celsius. “We expect to produce 1 crore vaccine doses per month from August onwards and 5 crore doses by December this year. Our target is to produce 10-12 crore vaccine doses in a year", managing director of Cadila Healthcare Dr Sharvil Patel said on its Covid vaccine candidate ZyCoV-D's production.
Dr Patel has also said that a study has been carried out in more than 50 clinical sites spread across the country and during the peak of the second wave of COVID-19 between April, May and June reaffirmed the vaccine's efficacy against the new mutant strains like delta variant.
