What students need to know about COVID vaccines

At a time, when&nbsp;the whole country is grappling with&nbsp;the sudden spike in&nbsp;COVID-19,&nbsp;India&nbsp;is&nbsp;on its way to get&nbsp;its&nbsp;third vaccine against&nbsp;the deadly virus&nbsp;after Bharat Biotech’s&nbsp;Covaxin&nbsp;and Oxford-AstraZeneca’s&nbsp;Covishield. The Drug Controller of India has recently granted permission for the restricted&nbsp;emergency&nbsp;of&nbsp;Sputnik V, a&nbsp;Russian vaccine. It was&nbsp;the first&nbsp;COVID-19 vaccine registered&nbsp;for public use&nbsp;last year.&nbsp;Here is what every student should know about these three vaccines.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Sputnik V Sputnik V,&nbsp;named after the&nbsp;world’s first artificial satellite made by Russia, is a&nbsp;combination of two adenoviruses&nbsp;(Ad26 and Ad5), the ones that cause&nbsp;common&nbsp;cold, flu and other respiratory infections.&nbsp;Scientists have used the weakened versions of this virus for the vaccine&nbsp;and genetically modified&nbsp;them by infusing a protein of the novel coronavirus in them.&nbsp;When administered to the human body, these adenoviruses do not multiply but&nbsp;stimulate the immune cells&nbsp;to work against COVID-19 infection.&nbsp;Sputnik V is approved for usage in 60 countries now including India.&nbsp;Media reports suggest that this COVID-19 vaccine is going to be available in India between late&nbsp;April&nbsp;and June.&nbsp;



Covishield&nbsp; The functioning of&nbsp;Covishield&nbsp;is similar to that of Sputnik V.&nbsp;Like the Russian vaccine,&nbsp;it is also made up of a weak&nbsp;strain of&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;adenovirus. In this case,&nbsp;the virus&nbsp;is&nbsp;derived from chimpanzees.&nbsp;Modified with the genes of a particular protein of the novel&nbsp;coronavirus, this&nbsp;vaccine&nbsp;enables human immune cells to fight against COVID-19 infection. However, it is unable&nbsp;to infect the human body.&nbsp;Covishield&nbsp;is&nbsp;developed by Oxford University in collaboration with a Swedish multinational company AstraZeneca and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), Pune.&nbsp;Two doses of the vaccine are administered at a gap of 6 weeks.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Covaxin This COVID-19 vaccine is developed by Hyderabad-based pharma company Bharat Biotech, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. Unlike&nbsp;Covishield&nbsp;and&nbsp;Sputnik V,&nbsp;Covaxin&nbsp;is composed of an inactivated strain of&nbsp;the novel coronavirus&nbsp;which doesn’t replicate inside&nbsp;human cells. It simply&nbsp;alerts the immune system and stimulates antibodies to protect against this deadly infection. This&nbsp;technology has been used in a wide range of&nbsp;vaccines&nbsp;for&nbsp;seasonal influenza, polio, pertussis, rabies, and Japanese Encephalitis.&nbsp;

Currently, two vaccines against the novel coronavirus are operational in India with the third one on its way. 

Sputnik V, Covaxin And Covishield: How do these COVID vaccines work?

Currently, two vaccines against the novel coronavirus are operational in India with the third one on its way. Here is what students need to know about them.

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