US-based company ties up with Delhi firm for vaccine
NEW DELHI: New Delhi-based biotechnology company Panacea Biotec Limited has partnered with US-based Refana Inc in the development, manufacturing and distribution of an experimental coronavirus disease (Covid-19) vaccine.
Panacea Biotec is working on product development and commercial manufacturing of an inactivated whole virus vaccine against Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. An inactivated whole virus vaccine uses a weakened or inactivated virus to trigger a lasting immune response against the infecting pathogen. It is a tried and tested platform, and examples of such vaccines include polio vaccine and smallpox vaccine.
The firm will produce at least 500 million doses, of which 40 to 45 million doses will be ready by January next year.
Panacea Biotec is the fifth biotech company from India to join global efforts on the development of a vaccine against Covid-19. There are at least 130 vaccines in various stages of development, of which 10 are in advanced stages of development, according to data from the World Health Organization.
BEIJING/PARIS/WASHINGTON/TOKYO: If the coronavirus pandemic worsens with “high caseloads overwhelming health systems”, its impact could be similar to that of the 1918 flu outbreak, which had killed an estimated 50-100 million people globally, a research paper published in The Lancet has said.
The research paper led by Gao Fu, the director of China’s CDC, said, “Should the pandemic worsen, its effect might approach that of the 1918 pandemic, which had a CFR (case fatality rate) of more than 2% and caused 50-100 million deaths worldwide,” the researchers argued in the paper.
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The global economy will suffer the biggest peacetime downturn in a century before it emerges next year from recession, the OECD said. It forecast the world economy would contract 6.0% this year before bouncing back with 5.2% growth in 2021.
PANDEMIC ISN’T OVER YET, WARNS FAUCI
Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease specialist, has warned that the pandemic “isn’t over yet”. In four months, Covid-19 has “devastated countries around the world”, said the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in an online address to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry group.
JAPAN’S MPS APPROVE RECORD RELIEF BUDGET
Japan’s powerful lower house of parliament approved an emergency budget worth nearly $300 billion on Wednesday, doubling the scale of measures to pep up the world’s third-biggest economy after the coronavirus tipped it into recession. The budget bill will be sent to the upper house and is widely expected to be enacted as early as Friday.