Covaxin found to neutralise Indian double mutant variant: US expert
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New Delhi: Covaxin, the Bharat Biotech developed India's first indigenous COVID vaccine, has been found to have the capacity to neutralise the 617 variant or double mutant COVID, said the White House chief medical adviser and America's top pandemic expert, Dr Anthony Fauci.
"This is something where we're still gaining data on a daily basis. But the most recent data was looking at convalescent Sera of COVID-19 cases and people who received the vaccine used in India, the Covaxin. It was found to neutralise the 617 variants," Dr Fauci said.
"So, despite the real difficulty that we're seeing in India, vaccination could be a very, very important antidote against this," he added.
Covaxin works by teaching the immune system to make antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, reported The New York Times on Tuesday.
Dr Andy Slavitt, White House COVID-19 Response Senior Advisor also informed that a strike team from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is headed over to India to coordinate the vaccine activities.
"We are making sure that we are locating some of the raw materials necessary to create more vaccines in India, which I think is going to be an important help there," he said.
"We stand with the country of India during this very trying and tragic surge. We are working to deploy resources and supplies, including therapeutics, rapid testing kits, ventilators, PPE, and raw materials, that are needed to manufacture vaccines in India, and the CDC, which has a long history of working with and in India on public health measures, will be deploying a strike team to the country to support the public health efforts there," Slavitt added.