COVAXIN

 With the announcement of COVAXIN by Bharat Biotech and ZyCov-D Vaccine by Zydus Cadila the proverbial silver line in the dark clouds of COVID-19 appears at the horizon. The nod given by the Drug Controller General of India CDSCO (The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation) for the conduct of the human trial for the vaccines marks the beginning of the end. More than 140 candidate vaccines are under various stages of development. One of the leading candidates is AZD1222 developed by Jenner Institute of University of Oxford and licensed to AstraZeneca BritishSwedish multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Cambridge, England. Parallelly, Indian institutions have also engaged in R&D for the development of vaccines in India. With the primary scientific inputs coming from ICMR’s Pune-based institution National Institute of Virology and Hyderabadbased CSIR institution Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, six Indian companies are working on a vaccine for COVID-19. IIT Mandi develops 98% efficient face masks from waste plastic bottles at nearly one tenth the cost . Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mandi developed high-efficiency face masks out of waste plastic bottles. The PET bottles were successfully converted into a nanofibre membrane. This membrane can be layered with nylon on both sides to create the mask. Research scholars Ashish Kakoria and Sheshang Singh Chandel produced the mask under the guidance of Prof Sumit Sinha Ray. The nanofibre membrane is 250 times thinner than a human hair and can remove minute particles with 98% efficiency.