Hope for Zika victims as Indian firm develops vaccine

An Indian firm now claims to have developed the world’s first vaccine against the fast-spreading mosquito-borne Zika virus which is rampant in South America, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.
Dr. Krishna Ella, Head of the Biotech International Limited in a news conference, said his company had already filed for a patent for the Zika vaccine.

“On Zika, we are probably the first vaccine company in the world to file a vaccine candidate patent about nine months ago,” he said.

Read also: Zika virus now global health emergency- WHO

Continuing, Ella said his firm, which is based in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh’s capital Hyderabad, had sought the Indian government’s help for carrying out human and animal trials for the two candidate vaccines, which have been developed by its scientists, using a live Zika
virus.

The announcement by the Indian firm which now claims to have developed the world’s first vaccine came a day after the World Health Organisation said that the Zika virus poses a global health emergency which requires a united and strategic response.

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