9 ms·

India approves first DNA Covid vaccine

63 points by vijayr02 5y ago

yread 5y ago
3 dose, 66% efficient against symptomatic delta variant, injection free, can be kept at 25C for 3 months.Not bad!
- Yajirobe 5y ago
  Vaccine that's injection free?
  - avnigo 5y ago
    > It is administered with a disposable needle-free injector, which uses a narrow stream of the fluid to penetrate the skin and deliver the jab to the proper tissue. I've never heard of something like this [0],[1]. It's not injector-free, but rather needle-free. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4675000/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4675000/ [1]: https://theconversation.com/a-covid-19-vaccine-may-come-without-a-needle-the-latest-vaccine-to-protect-without-jabbing-146564 https://theconversation.com/a-covid-19-vaccine-may-come-with...
    - tintinmovie 5y ago
      They've existed for quite a while now - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector#History
      - Aachen 5y ago
        That does not sound pleasant, though it seems they're less painful than needles from a bit of searching around.
        hhsub 5y ago
        Last jab I got I was sitting and waiting and I was looking around distracted and suddenly I felt the nurse was pushing the cotton already. She had injected me and I didn't feel anything at all. How are needles painful?
        icegreentea2 5y ago
        It varies on person (including mental state), needle size, and nurse/operator skill. I suspect one bad experience with a needle can prime someone for a poor response in follow up experiences.
        Aachen 5y ago
        Indeed. Both covid jabs were perfectly fine, it probably doesn't get any more painless than that come to think of it, but I had a regular one in February with a cocktail of various vaccines and that one was much less pleasant.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- evgen 5y ago
  Very cool if the efficacy numbers turn out to be true. No reason to doubt them, but a few of the vaccines have turned out to have wildly worse efficacy numbers in the real world compared to what was reported by the manufacturer. 28K trial pool (including children) is good, let's see if the numbers hold up over time.
  - avodonosov 5y ago
    is 66% good, comparing to other vaccines?
    - xvector 5y ago
      Most vaccines seem to be pretty shit versus the Delta variant. Pfizer/Moderna are about 53%: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e3.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e3.htm
      - schuke 5y ago
        The CDC website said Pfizer is 53% effective against infection while the Indian one is 66% against symptomatic delta. So it’s probably still not as good as the mRNA ones.
        thoughty 5y ago
        I believe The data from Israel was that Pfizer was 64% effective Against symptomatic delta variant.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - phonypc 5y ago
        53% "among nursing home residents"
- unmole 5y ago
  But not particularly great compared to Covishield (Oxford-AZ) and Covaxin which are the main vaccines in use in India. The fancy needle free injector is almost certainly going to be more expensive than a normal syringe and will make logistics more difficult. While the thermal stability is great, I don't think it will be a game changer. The one thing it has going for it is that it can be given to children above 12.
  - throw3849 5y ago
    Perhaps it is easier to apply than injections. Rural India may not have qualified medical personnel.
    - HelloNurse 5y ago
      Not qualified enough for intramuscular injections and paperwork? It doesn't seem likely. Fancy injectors might have advantages: less expensive, more expensive (in a corrupt enough setup), more compact, faster to use, physically or chemically better, but novelty itself makes them less easy to use.
  - akrain 5y ago
    I couldn't find the effectiveness of Covishield against Delta but for Covaxin the claimed efficacy is in the same ballpark at 65%. So this is not bad at all. Ref: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/covaxin-65-efficient-against-delta-variant-75-million-doses-supplied-so-far-bharat-biotech-101628789977213.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/covaxin-65-efficie...
jonnyrockit 5y ago
What could possibly go wrong.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
aguacate 5y ago
My very limited understanding tells me that the human body is a very complex system not fully understood. I only have engineering analogies, but deploying bad software in a complex distributed system can appear fine until latent effects are discovered literally years later (e.g. all data in a specific column for a subset of users was overwritten for records within 6 months in 2008). My understanding with some debilitating, fatal conditions are that the causes are not well known. Fundamentally, it seems that most science is a result of abductive, deductive reasoning etc but ultimately, tinkering and observation i.e. if you don't analyse something over 10 years, you don't know its effect over 10 years. By using a variety of different vaccines all over the world the expression of humanity is that we are spreading the risk among various vaccine types or contracting COVID itself. So for a mostly self-interested individual in a rural area with a low chance of catching COVID, would it follow that the safest (but maybe selfish) bet is to wait many years? Or is my premise or conclusion flawed, especially because I missing prerequisite knowledge?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >Or is my premise or conclusion flawed, especially because I missing prerequisite knowledge? Pharmaceutical-risk-based arguments aside, India is in a pretty bad spot COVID-wise. A massive proportion of the population is dirt poor (<$1/hr) and the broader society in general don't give a damn about their plight. They cannot afford to lock down. If they do so, millions will starve to death. They were literally begging, fighting and worse to get access to oxygen tanks earlier this year. The unlucky ones watched their parents and grandparents asphyxiate in their homes with no access to treatment of any kind. If this stuff can be produced cheaply, locally and quickly, then it will be lapped up gratefully by the hundreds of millions of poor people who would be dead and buried before they got the opportunity to receive Pfizer or Moderna. What could or might happen 10 years down the track will be the least of their worries if we see another flare up.
  - aguacate 5y ago
mabbo 5y ago
The two big advantages here: > administered with a disposable needle-free injector, which uses a narrow stream of the fluid to penetrate the skin and deliver the jab to the proper tissue. > They can also be stored at higher temperatures - 2 to 8C. Cadila Healthcare claims that their vaccine had shown "good stability" at 25C for at least three months No needles means, ideally, less training needed to administer. This can keep medical staff working hospitals, where they are needed. And high temperature storage means easier handling, less spoilage. Even if efficacy is lower with this vaccine, it's still going to save millions of lives of people who don't live in wealthy cities.
- Filligree 5y ago
  DNA is remarkably stable. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I’ve heard reports of separating it from proteins by boiling the stuff, which will certainly destroy the proteins but apparently leaves DNA largely intact. The second it’s inside your body the enzymes in your bloodstream will start tearing it apart, but that’s also true for practically anything else you can inject. Until then, refrigeration is far more than enough.
guilhas 5y ago
It is amazing how experimental treatments keep getting approved. And traditional proven and effective vaccine like Novavax keeps getting pushed behind
- thoughty 5y ago
  Coaxin is a transitional vaccine already approved in India (I took it). But yes they haven’t got EUA in US and WHO still hasn’t approved it yet.
- webmobdev 5y ago
  I too see some corporate competitive politics behind Novavax - Serum Institute of India (SII), one of the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world, had been licensed to manufacture Novavax in India last year, but apparently the US administration held it up by preventing exports of the raw material with their "US first" policy. That's kind of understandable, but even in the US, I don't think Novavax is so easily available (or perhaps it is but the US media is excessively giving attention to only the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna?). Even recently, SII said they are in talks to start production of Novavax this year, but it's still not available. It's not clear what is going on behind the scene with this particular vaccine.
  - gregwebs 5y ago
    The company started with zero manufacturing capacity. It’s now slated for fourth quarter in the US but earlier for Europe. I wish they would have been able to partner with big pharma much like the Pfizer vaccine.
    - webmobdev 5y ago
      That explains why they have a tie-up with one of the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world (SII), but the delay still seems to be political (either diplomatic or because of lobbying or both). According to a recent statement by SII MD, Novavax apparently still hasn't got the full approval from US FDA - https://youtu.be/Y8xw-NO1QA0?t=15 https://youtu.be/Y8xw-NO1QA0?t=15 . Meanwhile there are other reports that SII has started to test the Novavax vaccine in India (which they plan to distribute under the brand name "Covovax" after approval).
DrAwdeOccarim 5y ago
This is really cool to see. Just to help people with some context, this vaccine is 2 milligrams per shot (which is equal to 2000 micrograms). I am unsure if they use an adjuvant or not (seems like they don't). The reason they need to use so much material is the immune activation doesn't line up with spike protein expression and presentation. This is because the plasmid has to be turned into mRNA by the cell that takes it up. By the time the mRNA is being read to make the protein, the initial immune activation by the DNA itself is already waning. The concomitant signalling (immune activation to trick the body to think it's an actual infection, and detection of the foriegn spike protein at the time and place) is essential for robust immune response against the target. This is why the mRNA vaccines can use 100 micrograms and 30 micrograms (Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, respectively)--the innate immune activation caused by the mRNA itself occurs in at the time and space as antigen (spike protein) expression and presentation. I wish them luck with this, but I don't believe outside of an emergency this technology will be robust enough compared to mRNA, viral-vector, and traditional vaccines. One more thing, they detect plasmid for a month at the injection site (in non-clinical study) and nearly a month in the blood. That is a concern to me, but not a huge concern. (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.26.428240v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.26.428240v1)

63 points by vijayr02 5y ago

yread 5y ago

3 dose, 66% efficient against symptomatic delta variant, injection free, can be kept at 25C for 3 months.Not bad!

Yajirobe 5y ago
Vaccine that's injection free?
- avnigo 5y ago
  > It is administered with a disposable needle-free injector, which uses a narrow stream of the fluid to penetrate the skin and deliver the jab to the proper tissue. I've never heard of something like this [0],[1]. It's not injector-free, but rather needle-free. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4675000/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4675000/ [1]: https://theconversation.com/a-covid-19-vaccine-may-come-without-a-needle-the-latest-vaccine-to-protect-without-jabbing-146564 https://theconversation.com/a-covid-19-vaccine-may-come-with...
  - tintinmovie 5y ago
    They've existed for quite a while now - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector#History
    - Aachen 5y ago
      That does not sound pleasant, though it seems they're less painful than needles from a bit of searching around.
      - hhsub 5y ago
        Last jab I got I was sitting and waiting and I was looking around distracted and suddenly I felt the nurse was pushing the cotton already. She had injected me and I didn't feel anything at all. How are needles painful?
        icegreentea2 5y ago
        It varies on person (including mental state), needle size, and nurse/operator skill. I suspect one bad experience with a needle can prime someone for a poor response in follow up experiences.
        Aachen 5y ago
        Indeed. Both covid jabs were perfectly fine, it probably doesn't get any more painless than that come to think of it, but I had a regular one in February with a cocktail of various vaccines and that one was much less pleasant.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
evgen 5y ago
Very cool if the efficacy numbers turn out to be true. No reason to doubt them, but a few of the vaccines have turned out to have wildly worse efficacy numbers in the real world compared to what was reported by the manufacturer. 28K trial pool (including children) is good, let's see if the numbers hold up over time.
- avodonosov 5y ago
  is 66% good, comparing to other vaccines?
  - xvector 5y ago
    Most vaccines seem to be pretty shit versus the Delta variant. Pfizer/Moderna are about 53%: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e3.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e3.htm
    - schuke 5y ago
      The CDC website said Pfizer is 53% effective against infection while the Indian one is 66% against symptomatic delta. So it’s probably still not as good as the mRNA ones.
      - thoughty 5y ago
        I believe The data from Israel was that Pfizer was 64% effective Against symptomatic delta variant.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - phonypc 5y ago
      53% "among nursing home residents"
unmole 5y ago
But not particularly great compared to Covishield (Oxford-AZ) and Covaxin which are the main vaccines in use in India. The fancy needle free injector is almost certainly going to be more expensive than a normal syringe and will make logistics more difficult. While the thermal stability is great, I don't think it will be a game changer. The one thing it has going for it is that it can be given to children above 12.
- throw3849 5y ago
  Perhaps it is easier to apply than injections. Rural India may not have qualified medical personnel.
  - HelloNurse 5y ago
    Not qualified enough for intramuscular injections and paperwork? It doesn't seem likely. Fancy injectors might have advantages: less expensive, more expensive (in a corrupt enough setup), more compact, faster to use, physically or chemically better, but novelty itself makes them less easy to use.
- akrain 5y ago
  I couldn't find the effectiveness of Covishield against Delta but for Covaxin the claimed efficacy is in the same ballpark at 65%. So this is not bad at all. Ref: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/covaxin-65-efficient-against-delta-variant-75-million-doses-supplied-so-far-bharat-biotech-101628789977213.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/covaxin-65-efficie...

jonnyrockit 5y ago

What could possibly go wrong.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

aguacate 5y ago

My very limited understanding tells me that the human body is a very complex system not fully understood. I only have engineering analogies, but deploying bad software in a complex distributed system can appear fine until latent effects are discovered literally years later (e.g. all data in a specific column for a subset of users was overwritten for records within 6 months in 2008). My understanding with some debilitating, fatal conditions are that the causes are not well known. Fundamentally, it seems that most science is a result of abductive, deductive reasoning etc but ultimately, tinkering and observation i.e. if you don't analyse something over 10 years, you don't know its effect over 10 years. By using a variety of different vaccines all over the world the expression of humanity is that we are spreading the risk among various vaccine types or contracting COVID itself. So for a mostly self-interested individual in a rural area with a low chance of catching COVID, would it follow that the safest (but maybe selfish) bet is to wait many years? Or is my premise or conclusion flawed, especially because I missing prerequisite knowledge?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
AussieWog93 5y ago
>Or is my premise or conclusion flawed, especially because I missing prerequisite knowledge? Pharmaceutical-risk-based arguments aside, India is in a pretty bad spot COVID-wise. A massive proportion of the population is dirt poor (<$1/hr) and the broader society in general don't give a damn about their plight. They cannot afford to lock down. If they do so, millions will starve to death. They were literally begging, fighting and worse to get access to oxygen tanks earlier this year. The unlucky ones watched their parents and grandparents asphyxiate in their homes with no access to treatment of any kind. If this stuff can be produced cheaply, locally and quickly, then it will be lapped up gratefully by the hundreds of millions of poor people who would be dead and buried before they got the opportunity to receive Pfizer or Moderna. What could or might happen 10 years down the track will be the least of their worries if we see another flare up.
- aguacate 5y ago

mabbo 5y ago

The two big advantages here: > administered with a disposable needle-free injector, which uses a narrow stream of the fluid to penetrate the skin and deliver the jab to the proper tissue. > They can also be stored at higher temperatures - 2 to 8C. Cadila Healthcare claims that their vaccine had shown "good stability" at 25C for at least three months No needles means, ideally, less training needed to administer. This can keep medical staff working hospitals, where they are needed. And high temperature storage means easier handling, less spoilage. Even if efficacy is lower with this vaccine, it's still going to save millions of lives of people who don't live in wealthy cities.

Filligree 5y ago
DNA is remarkably stable. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I’ve heard reports of separating it from proteins by boiling the stuff, which will certainly destroy the proteins but apparently leaves DNA largely intact. The second it’s inside your body the enzymes in your bloodstream will start tearing it apart, but that’s also true for practically anything else you can inject. Until then, refrigeration is far more than enough.

guilhas 5y ago

It is amazing how experimental treatments keep getting approved. And traditional proven and effective vaccine like Novavax keeps getting pushed behind

thoughty 5y ago
Coaxin is a transitional vaccine already approved in India (I took it). But yes they haven’t got EUA in US and WHO still hasn’t approved it yet.
webmobdev 5y ago
I too see some corporate competitive politics behind Novavax - Serum Institute of India (SII), one of the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world, had been licensed to manufacture Novavax in India last year, but apparently the US administration held it up by preventing exports of the raw material with their "US first" policy. That's kind of understandable, but even in the US, I don't think Novavax is so easily available (or perhaps it is but the US media is excessively giving attention to only the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna?). Even recently, SII said they are in talks to start production of Novavax this year, but it's still not available. It's not clear what is going on behind the scene with this particular vaccine.
- gregwebs 5y ago
  The company started with zero manufacturing capacity. It’s now slated for fourth quarter in the US but earlier for Europe. I wish they would have been able to partner with big pharma much like the Pfizer vaccine.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    That explains why they have a tie-up with one of the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world (SII), but the delay still seems to be political (either diplomatic or because of lobbying or both). According to a recent statement by SII MD, Novavax apparently still hasn't got the full approval from US FDA - https://youtu.be/Y8xw-NO1QA0?t=15 https://youtu.be/Y8xw-NO1QA0?t=15 . Meanwhile there are other reports that SII has started to test the Novavax vaccine in India (which they plan to distribute under the brand name "Covovax" after approval).

DrAwdeOccarim 5y ago

This is really cool to see. Just to help people with some context, this vaccine is 2 milligrams per shot (which is equal to 2000 micrograms). I am unsure if they use an adjuvant or not (seems like they don't). The reason they need to use so much material is the immune activation doesn't line up with spike protein expression and presentation. This is because the plasmid has to be turned into mRNA by the cell that takes it up. By the time the mRNA is being read to make the protein, the initial immune activation by the DNA itself is already waning. The concomitant signalling (immune activation to trick the body to think it's an actual infection, and detection of the foriegn spike protein at the time and place) is essential for robust immune response against the target. This is why the mRNA vaccines can use 100 micrograms and 30 micrograms (Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, respectively)--the innate immune activation caused by the mRNA itself occurs in at the time and space as antigen (spike protein) expression and presentation. I wish them luck with this, but I don't believe outside of an emergency this technology will be robust enough compared to mRNA, viral-vector, and traditional vaccines. One more thing, they detect plasmid for a month at the injection site (in non-clinical study) and nearly a month in the blood. That is a concern to me, but not a huge concern. (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.26.428240v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.26.428240v1)