The South India times Hyderabad: Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), a global leader in vaccine innovation and developer of vaccines for infectious diseases, announced its rotavirus oral vaccine ROTAVAC® has been introduced by Nigeria to immunize its children from the life-threatening diarrheal disease.
According to a press release issued by BBIL, Nigeria currently accounts for 14% of all childhood rotavirus deaths globally, making it the country with the second-highest number of rotavirus deaths in the world. Rotavirus infection causes about 50,000 child fatalities under the age of five each year in Nigeria.
Dr. Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech said, “Decades of research and product development have resulted in ROTAVAC®. This vaccine is now available in several countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. We are proud to state that novel vaccines from India are saving lives worldwide.”
Rotavirus is one of the leading causes of diarrheal disease in the world and is responsible for over 40% of diarrhea in children. It accounts for about 215,000 of the 525,000-under-5 mortality worldwide each year that are attributed to diarrheal diseases, making it the most common cause of severe diarrhea.
ROTAVAC® received WHO-Prequalification in January 2018. Bharat Biotech developed the first generation, rotavirus vaccine, Rotavac under a Public-Private Partnership with the Department of Biotechnology, the Government of India, and 16 other international partners, making it the largest ever social innovation project for public health.
Bharat Biotech is a global leader in rotavirus vaccines, with one of the largest manufacturing capacities. ROTAVAC® was developed as a result of a multi-country – multi-partner collaborative model of team science for over 3 decades. This large public-private social innovation partnership included the Government of India’s Department of Biotechnology (DBT), the Indian Council of Medical Research, the Indian Institute of Science (IISC), the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), the Translational Health Sciences and Technology Institute (THSTI), the Society for Applied Studies (SAS), Christian Medical College (CMC) Vellore, King Edwards Memorial Hospital (KEM) Pune, Stanford University School of Medicine, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Johns Hopkins University and PATH.
