SII activates ‘Covishield recipe’ to fight deadly Ebola outbreak

Pune: City-based vaccine major Serum Institute of India (SII) has entered into an emergency response arrangement with the University of Oxford to develop and manufacture an investigational vaccine ready for testing against Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus with support from global epidemic preparedness organisation CEPI.Confirming the development, SII’s owner and CEO Adar Poonawalla said, “The University of Oxford will give access to the master viral seed to the SII to manufacture and stockpile the vaccine. We are expecting the viral seed within a week. We would be able to manufacture the vaccine doses within 20 to 30 days. CEPI will do the clinical trials in the affected country.”“Our expedited manufacturing strength shows India’s strength to curtail emerging and reemerging pathogens by rapidly manufacturing the vaccine,” Poonawalla said.SII previously delivered bivalent Ebola (against Zaire and Sudan strain) vaccine in 2022 within 62 days and also manufactured Marburg as well as Rift Valley virus vaccine doses within 17 days.The collaboration comes amid a deadly outbreak of the disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Ebola strain prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday to declare a public health emergency of international concern. Most of the cases have occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with more than 100 suspected deaths and nearly 400 suspected infections.SII’s executive director Umesh Shaligram said, “The master viral seed developed by Oxford would be used to inoculate the cell bank for the purpose of producing the vaccine doses in record time.”The vaccine will be based on the ChAdOx1 virus, a weakened version of the common cold (adenovirus) genetically modified to not replicate in humans. The vector platform has previously been used in the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine or the Oxford-AstraZeneca-Serum vaccine called Covishield in India. Covishield was produced at the SII’s Pune facility with a master seed from Oxford University and AstraZeneca, Shaligram said.The WHO says the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo does not meet the criteria of pandemic emergency, as defined in the International Health Regulations. Ebola viruses, while contagious and deadly, are not considered by experts to have pandemic potential because they are not respiratory viruses and do not spread through the air.