After the Covid-19 pandemic, many international organizations and institutions have come together for a feasible solution. New economic and social values are being designed. This virus has given a rich lesson to every country, to learn about global scientific collaborations by using their capabilities and provide some positive solutions.
The global pandemic of novel coronavirus (Covid-19) is one of the largest threats to humankind. As the third wave is feared to be coming anytime sooner, almost the whole of India is still struggling with the menace this life threatening virus has caused with the two waves it hit the country. The virus has negatively affected the society and economy. India and also countries around the world opted for lockdown of their economies, restricted mobility of the people, placed bans on tour and travel and quarantined their infected population, to contain the spread of this deadly virus. But, this virus being a lethal superspreader, has resulted in massive and irrepairable loss to humankind.
Covid-19, not only acted as a trade barrier across countries but also acted as a delinking factor between most of the economies. It, also provided new set of lessons to relink with the global economy through global scientific collaborations to develop new tools and capabilities for better possible solutions. Many international organizations and institutions have come together for a feasible solution. New economic and social values are being designed.
The virus has given a rich lesson to every country to learn about the global scientific collaborations by using their capabilities and provide some positive solutions. Several countries are taking tough decisions to protect their economic and social structure. New economic and social values are emerging as a result of the CoViD-19 pandemic. The world economy came to a grinding halt. Governments and businesses alike, were forced to reconsider what the priorities of the future global supply chain should be. Several international organizations came up together in this trying time. Both advanced and developing countries are reimagining the P-economic architecture with scientific collaborations and trying to help each other.
A collaborative work between nations for coronavirus vaccine development is very important to relink with the world economy and social structure (Picture courtesy: TEd)
The international collaboration in science, technology and innovation has greatly intensified in the last few months. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been actively acting as a hub to integrate and disperse information related to data and research findings. On 4 May 2020, leaders of the European Union decided to raise $8 billion to combat CoViD-19 with the objective to develop vaccine (Stevis-Gridneff and Jakes 2020). Several other countries around the world ranging from Canada to Japan and Norway to Australia also joined this meeting to kick-start unprecedented global cooperation. On the other side, many academic journals including Oxford Academic Journal, American Economic Review, Nature, Science, Elsevier, Cell Press, Wiley online library etc and research institutes also came together and made content from online resources and leading journals freely accessible to assist researchers, medical professionals, policy makers, and others who had been working relentless to address this health crisis.
Considering the formulation of a vaccine against CoVid-19, several Indian pharma companies and research institutes including Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, CMC Vellore, IIT-Guwahati, private companies such as Zydus Cadila, Biological E, Aurobindo Pharma, Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India are actively involved both locally as well as in collaboration with global organisations to formulate a vaccine against CoVid-19.
COVAXIN™ is the first indigenous CoViD-19 vaccine developed in India (Bharat Biotech 2020). This vaccine is an outcome of the partnership between ICMR and Bharat Biotech International Limited. The vaccine has been derived from a strain of SARS-CoV-2 isolated by ICMR-National Institute of Virology, Pune. ICMR and Bharat Biotech jointly working for the preclinical and clinical development of this vaccine[1] and got DCGI approval for the first and second phase of human clinical trials in July 2020 (Bharat Biotech 2020). Another development came from the joint works of Bharat Biotech and the US-based company FluGen along with virologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They have formulated CoroFlu vaccine and have now started testing the vaccine against CoVid-19 patients.The Serum Institute Pvt. Ltd. also partnered with Cadagenix an American biotechnology firm to develop a vaccine.
Zydus Cadila has accelerated its research programme with multiple teams in India and Europe to develop a vaccine for coronavirus. They basically use two approaches: The first one is centered around the development of a DNA vaccine against the major viral membrane protein which is responsible for the cell entry of the novel coronavirus. The second approach uses a live attenuated recombinant measles virus, designed to induce long-term specific Na. antibodies. Moreover, Indian Immunological Ltd. (IIL) also entered into a research collaboration agreement with Australia’s Griffith University to develop a vaccine. As part of the cross-continental collaboration, scientists from IIL and the University are going to develop a ‘Live Attenuated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine’ using the latest codon de-optimization technology. Along with these developments, Mynvax[2], a startup developed by IISc Bangalore, is also trying to develop a vaccine for CoVid-19 and are expecting the vaccine to be ready within a period of about 18 months. Panacea Biotech in collaboration with Refana Inc.[3] is trying to make a whole inactivated virus-based vaccine for CoViD-19.
We can conclude that it is now very important to come up with collaborative work. While this deadly pandemic has delinked us from the world economy and social structure, it has also offered us an opportunity to relink by defining stronger roles in terms of integration with other countries and institutions. This opportunity could be ours if only we are ready to lap it up for a global good.
References:
[1] ICMR press release D.O.No.ECD/COVID19/Misc./2020 on 2 July 2020.
[2] https://sid.iisc.ac.in/mynvax/
[3] Refana Inc., is United States registered private corporation dedicated to finding practical and innovative solutions to the world’s medical problems.
ANURAG ANAND is working with Centre for Technology, Innovation and Economic Research (CTIER), Pune, India, as a Research Associate. He can be reached at anand.anuomrag34@gmail.com
PREETI BHARTI is a Research Scholar at the Department of Multimedia, Hannam University (Daejeon, South Korea). She can be reached at preetibharti1112@gmail.com
Opinions expressed in this article are of the author’s and do not represent the policy of The Edition. The writers are solely responsible for any claim arising out of the contents of their articles.
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