Some 500 scientists from India and the US took 15 years to develop Rotovac, produced by Bharat Biotech.
A new, super-cheap, 'Made in India' Rotavirus vaccine launched on Monday has the potential to drastically reduce the country's high infant mortality rate due to diarrohea.
Rotavac, the indigenously-developed vaccine, is possibly the cheapest Rotavirus vaccine in the world. It costs Rs 200 for the required three doses, which is far lower than the vaccine produced by two multinationals that cost Rs. 1000 for a single dose.
More children die of the Rotavirus in India than in some Sub Saharan countries. "Diarrohea is the most important infection in childhood and it caused a lakh deaths per annum in children (of) less than five years," said Dr Rahul Nagpal, a paediatrician at New Delhi's Fortis Hospital. It's a viral infection", so there is no specific drug against it, so you have to prevent it," he added.
Some 500 scientists from India and the US took 15 years to develop Rotovac, produced by Bharat Biotech.
"Forget India, it's going to be the largest Rotavirus facility in the world," said Dr Krishna Ella, chairman and managing director, Bharat Biotech. "We created 500 million doses capacity that can be catered to a global requirement. Scale is most important to bring the cost down and that is how we are working on it.," he added.
Rotavac already has two international patents with two more pending.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who launched Rotavac on Monday, said he hoped that the development of the vaccine would inspire higher levels of research, development and manufacturing in Indian medicine, science and technology. Mr Modi added that solutions found in India would have great relevance to the rest of the world, especially the developing world.