Finally, India gets its first indigenously developed cell culture vaccine to fight the lethal swine flu strain.

The single-dose vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech's scientists at the Genome Valley facility in Hyderabad was launched on Monday, under the brand name HNVAC to help the country fight the spread of the disease.

At the launch, Bharat Biotech's chairman and managing director, Dr Krishna Ella stated, "We are pleased to announce the launch of HNVAC to help prevent the spread of H1N1 pandemic influenza, which can spread rapidly with a high rate of disease and death. Bharat Biotech is proud to develop and offer this vaccine with the best USFDA recommended cell culture technology for Indian consumers."

A little about HNVAC
HNVAC developed for the H1N1 pandemic strain, is the only vaccine manufactured from the developing world which uses mammalian cell culture technology instead of eggs.

This is a highly sterile, safe and controlled manufacturing process.

This places the flu vaccine ahead of many international as well as national pharmaceutical companies where eggs are still used for manufacturing.

Egg based vaccines are discouraged since they may be accompanied with adverse reaction from egg based protein, especially in children.

Krishna Ella stated, "The key benefit of our cell culture vaccine is its potential to scale up and produce large quantities quickly as required, it also has a much more sterile and faster production cycle, without the external dependence on eggs and thus enabling quicker response times in the event of a pandemic."

Safety and efficacy assessed
The safety and efficacy of HNVAC was tested extensively in one of the largest phase I, II and III clinical trials for flu vaccines in the country.

The trials proved that the vaccine is hundred percent safe, effective, well tolerated and affordable.

The vaccine was developed with approved strains from World Health Organization (WHO) and centre for Disease Control (CDC) Atlanta.

HNVAC has been approved by the Drug Controller of India (DCGI) and can be safely administered to any individual above three years.

The vaccine will be available for commercially use both through government and private agencies.

H1N1 still a threat
H1N1 is a highly contagious respiratory disease caused by swine influenza virus.

The deadly disease is characterized by tiredness, fever, sore throat, runny nose, muscle pains, headache, coughing, weakness, vomiting, loss of appetite and general discomfort.

WHO declared on 10 August 2010 that the pandemic was officially over, hence H1N1 is now in the post-pandemic period.

Medical experts caution the public not to ignore H1N1 flu because it will be one of the main viruses circulating this winter.

Krishna Ella stated, "While there's certainly widespread and growing concern around H1N1, there are number of people, who did not get a flu shot last year.

"Our goal right now is to make the flu vaccine easily accessible and at affordable cost to high risk groups."