The Children's Vaccine Programme (CVS) of the Seattle-based Programme for Appropriate Technology in Healthcare (PATH) wold be supporting a project to develop an India-specific Rotavirus vaccine by Bharat Biotech International Ltd. Over 1.25 lakh children die in India every year due to the virus that causes diarrhoea. CVS is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bharat Biotech, the Hyderabad-based biotechnology firm, would launch clinical trials for the rotavirus vaccine, preparing pilot lots of the vaccine for the trials. The trials will be conducted in Delhi over the next two to four years, under the guidance of ICMR. The vaccine is expected to be ready by the year 2006.

The researchers from All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, Stanford University and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) in the US are working together to replace the existing vaccine, Rotashield, which was pulled out from the US market in 1999, after it was found that it caused a rare bowel obstruction.

The first step towards an international collaboration on developing a new vaccine was taken at a meeting in Hyderabad from October 16 to 19. The group included experts from India and the US, who had collaborated in research on the rotavirus for over a decade, under the auspices of Indo-US Vaccine Action Programme. The four-day long session was attended by Prof. M K Bhan from AIIMS, Prof. Durga Rao from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Prof. Harry Greenberg from Stanford University and Dr Roger Glass from CDCP.

Krishna Ella, Director, Bharat Biotech, said the project represented a new approach to vaccine development wherein vaccine strains found in India would be prepared by a local biotech company and tested in clinical trials in India. The project had been supported by the Department of Biotechnology and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), but received a major impetus from the vaccine programme of PATH.

According to James E Maynard, Senior Vice-President, PATH, when developed it would be the first rotavirus vaccine in India. Bharat Biotech would be provided with part of the $6 million funds allotted by PATH for the vaccine development programme. Since this investment comes entirely from the public sector, the emphasis is not on recovering the money but on easy availability of the vaccine at the lowest possible price for the public sector use.

PATH is a non-profit organisation working for the cause of healthcare and is involved in several projects in Andhra Pradesh.