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The National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi, is under the process of developing the vaccine which can help in safeguarding children from the diarrhoea which is being caused by rotavirus.
Even though, vaccinations for safeguarding the children against rotavirus diarrhoea is available in the international markets from drug manufacturers like GlaxoSmithKline, the efficiency of those drugs in the Indian scenario is not yet ascertained.
According to Dr. Sudhanshu Vrati, a senior scientist at NII, the vaccination which is being developed is based upon the Indian strain of the rotavirus, known as the rotavirus 116 E. This strain has been isolated from the AMMS, New Delhi, from those children who are born in AIIMS.
The clinical trial of this vaccination is in phase III so that the efficiency of the vaccination is completely confirmed. The vaccination has been given to 90 children. The vaccine was administered in two doses. A lower dose of the vaccine showed 60% of children zero converted, where as higher dose resulted in 90% zero conversion. The next step in the trial is to find out if the zero conversion has led to decreased rate of diarrhoea.
The development of the rotavirus vaccination has gained acceleration because of the interest shown by WHO as well as interest shown by private as well as public sectors.
The rotavirus vaccination development project is being supported by the department of biotechnology under the Indo-US vaccine action programme since 1991 -1992.
