HYDERABAD: Do not drop your guard against COVID-19 even if any of the vaccine candidates across the world clears all the trials and proves successful. Stressing the importance of preventive measures including wearing masks and consumption of imunity-boosting food products, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) Director Dr Rakesh Mishra said it might take a couple of years for a successful vaccine candidate to prove its efficacy among people of all ages and more importantly reach the length and breadth of the country. Also, the successful vaccine might most probably not provide long-lasting protection against the virus, especially among adults.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, Dr Mishra said, "There are mainly three challenges. One that it might take a couple of years before we get to know how effective a vaccine is among people of different age groups, once it is launched, as only a few months after people start taking the vaccine will its effect be known. Second, there are various types of vaccines being developed. If the successful vaccine is an mRNA vaccine which is being developed in the US, which requires storage under cold conditions of around -80 degrees Celsius, we do not have such infrastructure in villages to deliver the vaccine there. Another challenge is ensuring the vaccine reaches 1.3 billion people in the country, which will take time."
Apart from these, Dr Mishra added that the successful vaccine might provide immunity against the novel coronavirus for just six months or more but it might not be long lasting.
On Thursday, CCMB announced that a startup incubated at its Atal Incubation Centre, Clone Deals, has developed a food supplement named 'CoronAid' derived from a mushroom variety that grows in the Himalayan region, which it claims will help in boosting immunity among humans against COVID-19. The mushroom, Cordyceps militaris, is known for its immune boosting and anti-oxidant components.
The startup has obtained FSSAI approval for marketing and submitted a request to the central government for conducting clinical trials to establish the safety of their formulation with three All India Institutes of Medical Sciences -- Nagpur, Navi Mumbai and Bhopal. If the clinical trials are successful, the product is expected to be available in the market by December this year.
Dr Mishra said that before a vaccine proves its effectiveness and reaches the masses, products like CoronAid will play an important role.
Clone Deals collaborated with another Hyderabad-based company to develop a combination of the mushroom powder with curcumin, an active ingredient in turmeric to make CoronAid Anti-Viral Immunity Booster Oral Suspension. The startup is also working on developing a drug against COVID-19 using the natural ingredient.
The CCMB in a press release said that a chemical known as cordycepin in the mushroom is known to prevent formation of new DNA and RNA strands. Clone Deals collaborated with scientists from CCMB to establish the potency of cordycepin in stopping the growth of the COVID-causing coronavirus in a cell-culture system. Studies show that cordycepin inhibits multiplication of the coronavirus.