Santo Domingo, RD.
The Dominican government has announced the purchase of 110,000 doses of Covishield vaccine, developed in India by AstraZeneca. This is expected to be the first batch to arrive in the Dominican Republic in March.
What are the characteristics of this vaccine?
This vaccine is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus known as chimpanzee adenovirus. It has been modified to look more like a coronavirus, although it cannot cause disease by causing the immune system to start producing antibodies and prepare it to attack the coronavirus infection, according to the BBC.
For greater efficacy, two doses are required; after the first injection, wait four to 12 weeks for the second inoculation.
The BBC states that its manufacturer must be kept at a refrigeration temperature of 2 ° C to 8 ° C, which would be the same temperature as a household refrigerator, which makes it easier to apply food in any environment.
This is an advantage over the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which must be kept at -70 ° C, so special containers must be purchased to preserve this brand of vaccine, while it would not be necessary for Covishield.
Covishield / ChAdOx1nCoV-19 Corona Virus Vaccine – Recombinant is produced by Oxford-AstraZeneca at the Serum Institute in India, which is the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, creating over 50 million doses per month.
International clinical trials of the vaccine have shown that when people received half a dose and then a full dose, the effectiveness reached 90%. But there were not enough clear data to support the idea of half-dose and full-dose.
The vaccine has been approved in case of emergency, and the Dominican government hopes that the Serum Institute of India will be the first house to deliver the doses in the country, although it said that they will arrive in March, no day has been specified.
The first to receive the vaccine, according to Dominican authorities, are about 12,500 front-line fighters in the health sector, which consists of about 210,000 people.
The vaccine produced in India and already authorized by 12 health authorities around the world, has been approved by the National Administration of Medicines, Food and Medical Technology (Anmat).
Other countries that have signed up to buy
Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles have already received the Covishield Indian vaccine.
Covishield distributors sent their vaccines as gifts and other doses by trade.
In June last year, AstraZeneca entered into a licensing agreement with Serum to provide 1 billion doses to low- and middle-income countries, with a commitment to provide 400 million by the end of 2020.
It also intends to send doses to Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Mauritius after regulatory clearances in those countries. It also authorized commercial exports of Covishield vaccine to Brazil.
India is a major manufacturer of medicines and also vaccines with its own research.
The National Expert Group for Vaccine Administration against COVID-19 in August 2020 was created to coordinate the contracting and distribution of vaccines starting today three advanced projects: Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech in association with the Indian Medical Research Council (CMR ); ZyCOV-D, developed by Zydus Cadila, which is expected to produce over 100 million doses; and finally, Covishield, approved by the government on Tuesday.