Hyderabad-based vaccine maker Bharat Biotech has two candidates in development for making vaccine for Zika virus.
Disclosing this at a press conference here on Wednesday, its Chairman and Managing Director, Krishna Ella, said his company was working on the Zika vaccine development since 2014.
"We have two ZikaVac candidates in development. While an inactivated vaccine has reached the stage of pre-clinical trials in animals, another Recombinant vaccine is also under development,’’ he said. Bharat Biotech has also filed a patent for the candidates.
On the likely time frame for bringing the vaccine to be market, he said that in normal course of regulatory approvals it takes about seven years to bring out a vaccine. ``However, if the Government declares a national emergency on Zika virus, we can bring it to market in two years from now,’’ Ella said.
However, the vaccine candidates are yet to be proved efficacious and safe in clinical trials as well. It may be too early to talk about brining the vaccine to market.
After an alert by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Centre has on Tuesday appointed the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as the nodal agency for investigation into any outbreak of the viral infection in India.
Zika virus, which transmits through the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito, is now affecting 22 countries according to WHO. Brazil has the highest number of cases (about 3500) reported so far.