In a press statement on Thursday, Indian pharmaceutical giant Zydus Cadila said it had conducted India's largest Covid-19 vaccine trial to date when testing the effectiveness and safety of its new shot. The trial, it says, took place during the wave caused by the Delta variant.
The firm stated that they had applied to the Indian medical regulator with strong results, noting that their vaccine had been proven to be effective against multiple new strains of the virus, including the Delta variant which was first identified in India. The vaccine was also tested on adolescents aged 12-18, the first time this has happened in the country.
Comment: 'Adolescents' - at 12 years old, one would call these as experiments on children.
Zydus claims that the vaccine is 66.6% effective at preventing "symptomatic RT-PCR positive" cases in its interim analysis. "Whereas, no moderate case of Covid-19 disease was observed in the vaccine arm post administration of the third dose suggesting 100% efficacy for moderate disease," it adds, while also confirming that no severe cases or deaths were observed.
Comment: At this point it's clear that the vast majority of claims by Covid vaccine manufacturers, particularly those seeking 'emergency approval' - meaning that they do not have adequate safety data - are not to be trusted: Rare nerve disorder linked to AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer and Moderna's investigated for heart inflammation link
Zydus says the plasmid DNA technology is "ideally suited" for beating Covid-19, noting that it can be easily adapted, and adding that the vaccine is the world's first plasmid DNA shot. The vaccine works by injecting genetically engineered plasmid containing the DNA sequence of the pathogen.
"This breakthrough marks a key milestone in scientific innovation and advancement in technology," said Dr. Sharvil Patel, managing director of Cadila Healthcare.
The statement adds that it is an intradermal vaccine, meaning it can be administered using "The PharmaJet needle free system." The system delivers medicine to intramuscular and subcutaneous tissue depths without needles; something that may prove useful in a world competing for needles and syringes. It has also been reported that a fear of needles has stopped some from being vaccinated.
Zydus's vaccine, which would be the fifth approved in India, would provide Delhi with another weapon to fight the virus which has ravaged the country. The firm aims to produce 120 million doses annually.
Comment: Vaccines aren't necessary for a virus that is relatively harmless for the vast majority. Moreover, there are already simple medications, such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, with decades of safety data that are both more effective and provably safer. Even so, were one to reluctantly choose to be vaccinated, it would seem that vaccines based on known techniques would be the least risky option - such as Sputnik V - whereas those that use highly experimental and unproven technologies are demonstrably fraught with unforeseen harms. All that said, natural immunity is far safer and superior; and this new Indian vaccine sounds like a disaster waiting to happen: