M-RNA VACCINES - SCI & TECH
News: Indian-made
mRNA vaccine priced at 2,292, will be available as a booster dose
What's in the news?
● India's
first indigenously developed mRNA vaccine against the dominant Omicron variant
of the COVID-19 coronavirus will cost 2,292, Sanjay Singh, CEO, Gennova
Biopharmaceuticals, said at a press conference.
Key takeaways:
● GEMCOVAC-OM
is the only mRNA vaccine currently approved in India, under "emergency use
authorization", that has been made specifically to counter the Omicron
variant.
mRNA Vaccine:
● An
mRNA vaccine is a type of vaccine that uses a copy of a molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA) to produce an immune
response.
● The
vaccine delivers molecules of antigen-encoding mRNA into immune cells, which
use the designed mRNA as a blueprint to build foreign protein that would
normally be produced by a pathogen (such as a virus) or by a cancer cell.
● Messenger
RNA (mRNA) vaccines teach our cells how to make a protein that will trigger an
immune response inside our bodies.
Benefit of m-RNA vaccine:
● mRNA
vaccines do not use any live virus.
● mRNA
vaccines cannot cause infection with the
virus that causes COVID-19 or other viruses as it doesn't enter into the
nucleus of the cell.
● They
do not affect or interact with our DNA
in any way.
● The
mRNA and the spike protein do not last
long in the body.
● Like
all vaccines, mRNA vaccines benefit people who get vaccinated by giving them
protection against diseases like COVID-19 without risking the potentially
serious consequences of getting sick.
Recent mRNA vaccines:
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19
vaccines are messenger RNA vaccines, also called mRNA vaccines.