Fact Check: Conspiracy theory says Bill Gates-backed polio vaccine disabled 47,000 kids - India Today
Fact Check: Conspiracy theory says Bill Gates-backed polio vaccine disabled 47,000 kids - India Today |
- Fact Check: Conspiracy theory says Bill Gates-backed polio vaccine disabled 47,000 kids - India Today
- Indian Billionaires Bet Big on Head Start in Coronavirus Vaccine Race - The New York Times
- India emerges as world's key vaccine manufacturing hub - The Sunday Guardian
| Posted: 04 Aug 2020 01:38 AM PDT A viral message on Facebook claims that hundreds of doctors had sued Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates after a polio vaccine he had funded left over 47,000 children in India disabled, leading to his expulsion from the country. Several Facebook users have shared an image of Bill Gates administering polio vaccine to a child with the caption, "Never forget that hundreds of doctors sued Bill Gates for vaccinating over 47,000 children with the polio vaccine and that he instead created a deadly 'Super Polio', for this very reason he was expelled from India. In 2011 doctors in India reported that young children were becoming paralyzed in large numbers after receiving the oral polio vaccine, as a result thousands of children were disabled and disabled for life as a direct result of the Bill Gates vaccine."  India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that neither was Gates sued nor was he expelled from India. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) continues to work on several projects in the country. The allegations about the vaccine are not correct either. The archived versions of the posts can be seen here and here. Multiple users have shared similar posts on Facebook. Was Gates expelled from India? It is true that BMGF has been funding research and child-immunisation programmes in several developing countries, including India. But the claim that he has been expelled from the country is not true. In fact, on May 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with Gates through video conferencing on "the importance of global coordination on scientific innovation and R&D to combat the (Covid-19) pandemic". PM Modi appreciated the work being done by BMGF not only in India, but also in other parts of the world, including coordinating the global response to Covid-19. In 2017, the Indian government had published a press statement saying some news reports had suggested that all collaboration with BMGF had been stopped, but it was "inaccurate and misleading. BMGF continues to collaborate and support the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare". The archived version of the statement can be seen here. Allegations about the polio vaccine The viral claim about a Gates-backed polio vaccine disabling 47,000 children in India seems to have stemmed from a report published in the "Indian Journal of Medical Ethics" in 2012. According to the report, a huge increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP) is "directly proportional to doses of oral polio received". BMGF funds polio eradication programmes. But while NPAFP cases () did increase in the mid-2000s, it doesn't mean polio vaccine was necessarily the cause. As per a "BBC News" report published in 2013, polio is just one of many causes, with other viruses and bacteria also responsible for a sharp rise of acute flaccid paralysis cases in India. However, it should also be noted that the World Health Organization has said oral polio vaccine (OPV) is an extremely safe and effective tool for immunising children against the disease. But at the same time, it said "On very rare occasions, OPV can lead to vaccine-associated paralytic polio or vaccine-derived poliovirus." Therefore, the viral claim saying Bill Gates was expelled from India because a polio vaccine funded by him disabled 47,000 children is not true. INDIA TODAY FACT CHECK  ClaimHundreds of doctors had sued Bill Gates for a polio vaccine he created which disabled 47,000 children in India. This is why he was expelled from India. ConclusionNeither was Bill Gates sued nor was he expelled from India. The allegations about the vaccine are incorrect. JHOOTH BOLE KAUVA KAATEThe number of crows determines the intensity of the lie.
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| Indian Billionaires Bet Big on Head Start in Coronavirus Vaccine Race - The New York Times Posted: 01 Aug 2020 02:00 AM PDT  PUNE, India — In early May, an extremely well-sealed steel box arrived at the cold room of the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine maker. Inside, packed in dry ice, sat a tiny 1-milliliter vial from Oxford, England, containing the cellular material for one of the world's most promising coronavirus vaccines. Scientists in white lab coats brought the vial to Building 14, carefully poured the contents into a flask, added a medium of vitamins and sugar and began growing billions of cells. Thus began one of the biggest gambles yet in the quest to find the vaccine that will bring the world's Covid-19 nightmare to an end. The Serum Institute, which is exclusively controlled by a small and fabulously rich Indian family and started out years ago as a horse farm, is doing what a few other companies in the race for a vaccine are doing: mass-producing hundreds of millions of doses of a vaccine candidate that is still in trials and might not even work. But if it does, Adar Poonawalla, Serum's chief executive and the only child of the company's founder, will become one of the most tugged-at men in the world. He will have on hand what everyone wants, possibly in greater quantities before anyone else. His company, which has teamed up with the Oxford scientists developing the vaccine, was one of the first to boldly announce, in April, that it was going to mass-produce a vaccine before clinical trials even ended. Now, Mr. Poonawalla's fastest vaccine assembly lines are being readied to crank out 500 doses each minute, and his phone rings endlessly. National health ministers, prime ministers and other heads of state (he wouldn't say who) and friends he hasn't heard from in years have been calling him, he said, begging for the first batches. "I've had to explain to them that, 'Look I can't just give it to you like this,'" he said. Image  With the coronavirus pandemic turning the world upside down and all hopes pinned on a vaccine, the Serum Institute finds itself in the middle of an extremely competitive and murky endeavor. To get the vaccine out as soon as possible, vaccine developers say they need Serum's mammoth assembly lines — each year, it churns out 1.5 billion doses of other vaccines, mostly for poor countries, more than any other company. Half of the world's children have been vaccinated with Serum's products. Scale is its specialty. Just the other day, Mr. Poonawalla received a shipment of 600 million glass vials. But right now it's not entirely clear how much of the coronavirus vaccine that Serum will mass-produce will be kept by India or who will fund its production, leaving the Poonawallas to navigate a torrent of cross-pressures, political, financial, external and domestic. India has been walloped by the coronavirus, and with 1.3 billion people, it needs vaccine doses as much as anywhere. It's also led by a highly nationalistic prime minister, Narendra Modi, whose government has already blocked exports of drugs that were believed to help treat Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Adar Poonawalla, 39, says that he will split the hundreds of millions of vaccine doses he produces 50-50 between India and the rest of the world, with a focus on poorer countries, and that Mr. Modi's government has not objected to this. Updated But he added, "Look, they may still invoke some kind of emergency if they deem fit or if they want to." The Oxford-designed vaccine is just one of several promising contenders that will soon be mass-produced, in different factories around the world, before they are proven to work. Vaccines take time not just to perfect but to manufacture. Live cultures need weeks to grow inside bioreactors, for instance, and each vial needs to be carefully cleaned, filled, stoppered, sealed and packaged. The idea is to conduct these two processes simultaneously and start production now, while the vaccines are still in trials, so that as soon as the trials are finished — at best within the next six months, though no one really knows — vaccine doses will be on hand, ready for a world desperate to protect itself. American and European governments have committed billions of dollars to this effort, cutting deals with pharmaceutical giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Sanofi and AstraZeneca to speed up the development and production of select vaccine candidates in exchange for hundreds of millions of doses. AstraZeneca is the lead partner with the Oxford scientists, and it has signed government contracts worth more than $1 billion to manufacture the vaccine for Europe, the United States and other markets. But it has allowed the Serum Institute to produce it as well. The difference, Mr. Poonawalla said, is that his company is shouldering the cost of production on its own. But Serum is distinct from all other major vaccine producers in an important way. Like many highly successful Indian businesses, it is family-run. It can make decisions quickly and take big risks, like the one it's about to, which could cost the family hundreds of millions of dollars. Mr. Poonawalla said he was "70 to 80 percent" sure the Oxford vaccine would work. But, he added, "I hope we don't go in too deep." Unbeholden to shareholders, the Serum Institute is steered by only two men: Mr. Poonawalla and his father, Cyrus, a horse breeder turned billionaire. More than 50 years ago, the Serum Institute began as a shed on the family's thoroughbred horse farm. The elder Poonawalla realized that instead of donating horses to a vaccine laboratory that needed horse serum — one way of producing vaccines is to inject horses with small amounts of toxins and then extract their antibody-rich blood serum — he could process the serum and make the vaccines himself. He started with tetanus in 1967. Then snake bite antidotes. Then shots for tuberculosis, hepatitis, polio and the flu. From his stud farm in the fertile and pleasantly humid town of Pune, Mr. Poonawalla built a vaccine empire, and a staggering fortune. Capitalizing on India's combination of cheap labor and advanced technology, the Serum Institute won contracts from Unicef, the Pan American Health Organization and scores of countries, many of them poor, to supply low-cost vaccines. The Poonawallas have now entered the pantheon of India's richest families, worth more than $5 billion. Horses are still everywhere. Live ones trot around emerald paddocks, topiary ones guard the front gates, and fancy glass ornaments frozen in mid-strut stand on the tabletop of Serum's baronial boardroom overlooking its industrial park, where 5,000 people work. Inside the facility producing the coronavirus vaccine candidate, white-hooded scientists monitor the vital signs of the bioreactors, huge stainless steel vats where the vaccine's cellular material is reproduced. Visitors are not allowed inside but can peer through double-paned glass. "These cells are very delicate," said Santosh Narwade, a Serum scientist. "We have to take care with oxygen levels and mixing speed or the cells get ruptured." His voice was jumpy with excitement. "We all feel like we're giving the solution to our nation and our world," he said. Initial trial results of the Oxford-designed vaccine showed that it activated antibody levels similar to those seen in recovering Covid-19 patients, which was considered very good news. Serum has already produced millions of doses of this vaccine for research and development, including large batches for the ongoing trials. By the time the trials finish, expected around November, Serum plans to have stockpiled 300 million doses for commercial use. The Coronavirus Outbreak ›Frequently Asked QuestionsUpdated August 3, 2020
But even if this vaccine fails to win the race, the Serum Institute will still be instrumental. It has teamed up with other vaccine designers, at earlier stages of development, to manufacture four other vaccines, though those are not being mass produced yet. And if all of those fail, Mr. Poonawalla says he can quickly adapt his assembly lines to manufacture whatever vaccine candidate does work, wherever it comes from. "Very few people can produce it at this cost, this scale and this speed," he said. Under the AstraZeneca deal, Serum can make 1 billion doses of the Oxford vaccine for India and lower- and middle-income countries during the pandemic and charge an amount that is no more than its production costs. After the pandemic passes, Mr. Poonawalla expects that he will be able to sell the vaccine at a profit — if it works — but his biggest concern is the near term and covering his cash flow. He estimates that he is spending around $450 million to mass-produce the Oxford vaccine. Many of his expenses might never be recouped, like the costs for the vials holding the vaccine and the chemicals used in the process. For the first time, the Poonawallas say they are considering turning to sovereign wealth or private equity funds for help. Contrast that with the deals made under President Trump's Warp Speed project, and the similar ones in Europe. In the scramble to secure hundreds of millions of doses for their people, richer countries have already paid or committed to pay drug companies handsomely to offset the risks of mass-producing a vaccine candidate that might not work and end up being thrown out. What this spells is "vaccine nationalism," said Dr. Olivier Wouters, a health policy professor at the London School of Economics. "Rich countries are getting to the front of the queue and poorer countries are at risk of getting left behind." Analysts said it was likely that Serum would eventually get some financial help from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports global immunization programs, or maybe the Indian government. Both declined to comment. But any deal will probably be far smaller than what the big pharmaceutical companies have landed. Another difference is that those companies are vaccine developers and producers. Serum's role, at least for the Oxford vaccine, is purely production. Either way, Mr. Poonawalla said he felt an obligation to take this risk. "We just felt that this was our sort of moment," he said. Since Adar Poonawalla took over as Serum's chief executive from his father in 2011, the company has expanded into new markets, pushing revenues to more than $800 million. A few years ago, the Poonawallas decided to buy the former American consulate building in Mumbai, which used to be a maharajah palace, for $113 million — for a weekend retreat. They have more Rolls-Royces and Ferraris than you can shake a stick at, and a Batmobile. Adar Poonawalla acknowledged that his family was better known for "being seen in some fancy car or a jet or whatever,'' than making lifesaving vaccines. "A lot of people didn't even know in India what the hell I did," he said. "They thought, 'Oh, you do something with horses or something, you must be making money.'" Mr. Poonawalla senses this is about to change. He is confident that the Oxford vaccine his gleaming stainless-steel machines are churning out has the best shot of working. If it does, he plans to roll up his sleeve and brace for an injection. "It would be ridiculous," he said, "if I spent all this money, committed to everything, and I didn't take it myself." Kai Schultz contributed reporting from New Delhi.  |
| India emerges as world's key vaccine manufacturing hub - The Sunday Guardian Posted: 11 Jul 2020 12:00 AM PDT  New Delhi: The Indian vaccine market, which has carved out a place for itself at the global level, is expected to reach a valuation of Rs 252 billion by 2025. The Indian market size was Rs 94 billion in 2019. Two coronavirus vaccine candidates, out of a total 11 worldwide that have entered the human trial phase, are from India. According to a report by the International Market Analysis Research and Consulting (IMARC) Group, India currently is one of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of vaccines in the world. "It solely accounts for around 60% of the total vaccines supplied to the UNICEF, since the cost of manufacturing and clinical trials in India is relatively lower than in developed countries. Moreover, technological advancements and improved cold chain storage facilities have led to increased vaccine production capacity in the country," the latest IMARC report has said. Since India has emerged as one of the significant vaccine manufacturing hubs of the world, the vaccine for Covid-19 may be developed anywhere in the world, but the production of required quantities may not be feasible without the involvement of Indian manufacturers, sources say. While two vaccine candidates that have entered the human trial phase, are from India nine are from other countries. Two firms working outside of India have inked an agreement with Indian manufacturers for production of Covid-19 vaccines, which shows the might of the Indian vaccine industry. The IMARC report has segmented the Indian vaccine market on the basis of vaccine types. In 2019, varicella accounted for the maximum share of the total monovalent vaccine market in India, whereas oral polio accounted for the biggest share of the combined vaccine market in India. The report has also analysed the competitive landscape and provides the profiles of the key players operating in the market. In 2019, GlaxoSmithKline represented the largest player in the Indian vaccine market. Other major players included Sanofi Aventis, Pfizer, Novartis and Serum Institute of India. All over the world, more than 140 candidate vaccines for Covid-19 infection are under various stages of development. Out of them, 11 vaccine candidates have entered the human trial phase. Of the 11, two are Indian vaccine candidates. One of the leading vaccine candidates in the world is AZD1222, developed by Jenner Institute of University of Oxford and licensed to AstraZeneca British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical company headquartered in Cambridge, England. While the MRNA-1273 vaccine developed by Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, Washington, and taken up for production by the US-based Moderna pharmaceutical, is just a step behind. Both these firms have inked agreements with Indian manufacturers for vaccine production. Two Covid-19 vaccine candidates from India—Covaxin, developed by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited in collaboration with ICMR and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), and ZyCov-D vaccine by Zydus Cadila—recently got the nod for human clinical trials from the Drug Controller General of India. Both have been approved for Phase II, III trials. "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," reads a letter by the Ministry of Science and Technology. "Several institutions have also engaged in research and development for the development of vaccines in India. With the primary scientific inputs coming from institutions like Pune-based ICMR institution National Institute of Virology and Hyderabad-based CSIR institution Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, six Indian companies are working on a vaccine for Covid-19," the Ministry said. Bharat Biotech's Covaxin uses the virus isolated from an Indian patient by the National Institute of Virology to develop the inactivated virus vaccine. Bharat Biotech has earlier developed vaccines against polio, rotavirus, Japanese encephalitis and Zika.  |
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