17.12.12

India develops vaccine against JE


The world’s first vaccine against Japanese Encephalitis (JE), created using an Indian strain of the virus, is now ready.
The National Institute of Virology, Pune, had provided Bharat Biotech with a strain of the JE virus collected from Kolar in Karnataka — a hotbed for JE infections. Bharat has just submitted the results from the final human trials to the drugs controller general of India (DCGI) for marketing clearance.
Dr Raj Shankar Ghosh from PATH, an organization instrumental in conducting JE vaccinations since 2006 across 15 states and 118 districts, said that the injectible vaccine has been found to have a protection rate of over 90% and can be used on the 1-15 years age group.
Interestingly, according to PATH’s country programme leader Tarun Vij, the vaccine, besides protecting against the Indian strains of JE, is also effective against the Nakayama strain — the original strain from Japan, and the Biken strain that circulates in other Asian countries.
At present, India imports its entire stock of JE vaccine from China’s National Biotech Group. The arrival of the indigenous Indian vaccine will greatly help protect the country’s population against a disease that is growing in numbers.

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