Consider the following pairs of vaccine and category/type: 1. Covaxin : Inactivated pathogen-based vaccine 2. Covishield : mRNA vaccine 3. Sputnik V : Viral vector-based vaccine Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 and 3 only
- (c)1 and 3 only
- (d)1, 2 and 3
Correct — C, 1 and 3 only. Pair 1 holds. Covaxin, or BBV152, was developed by Bharat Biotech with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology, and it is a whole-virion inactivated vaccine — the virus is grown in cell culture, killed chemically, and given with an adjuvant, the same century-old platform behind the killed polio and influenza vaccines. Pair 3 holds too. Sputnik V, from the Gamaleya institute in Moscow, is a viral-vector vaccine, and an unusual one in that its two doses use different adenoviruses, Ad26 first and Ad5 second, so that immunity raised against the first carrier does not blunt the second dose. Pair 2 is the one that fails, and it is the reason the answer is not option (d).
- (a)1 only — Accepts only Covaxin and rejects Sputnik V, but Sputnik V is correctly described as viral-vector-based; that is exactly what the Gamaleya vaccine is.
- (b)2 and 3 only — Keeps the one pair that is wrong and drops one that is right. Covishield is not an mRNA vaccine, and Covaxin is properly an inactivated-pathogen vaccine.
- (d)1, 2 and 3 — The all-three pick, and it fails on pair 2. Covishield is the Serum Institute of India's version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 — a replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus carrying the gene for the spike protein. That is a viral-vector vaccine, not an mRNA one. India's programme used no mRNA vaccine at scale; the mRNA platform is the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna one.
COVID-19 vaccines fall into a small number of platforms. An inactivated vaccine presents the whole killed pathogen. A viral-vector vaccine puts the gene for one antigen — here the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein — inside a harmless, usually replication-deficient virus that ferries it into human cells. An mRNA vaccine skips the carrier and delivers the genetic instructions directly, wrapped in lipid nanoparticles. A protein-subunit vaccine supplies the antigen ready-made. Every one of them shows the immune system the spike antigen or the instructions to build it; none contains a live, replicating SARS-CoV-2, and none supplies ready-made antibodies.
This is a platform-matching item, and the fastest route through it is to fix each of India's two main vaccines to its maker. Covaxin is Bharat Biotech's and is killed whole virus; Covishield is the Serum Institute's manufacture of the Oxford-AstraZeneca design and is a chimpanzee adenovirus vector. Once Covishield is placed as a vector vaccine, pair 2 collapses and both options containing it go. The trap is real, because through 2021 the phrase 'mRNA vaccine' was in the news constantly and it is easy to attach it to whichever vaccine sounds most modern. It helps to remember that no mRNA vaccine was used in India's mass campaign at all — Covaxin, Covishield, Sputnik V, Corbevax and Covovax between them covered inactivated, vector and protein-subunit platforms, and India's own nucleic-acid entrant, ZyCoV-D, was a plasmid-DNA vaccine rather than an mRNA one.
- Covaxin (BBV152), from Bharat Biotech with ICMR and the National Institute of Virology, is a whole-virion inactivated vaccine.
- Covishield is the Serum Institute of India's manufacture of the Oxford-AstraZeneca ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine, a replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus vector carrying the spike gene.
- Sputnik V, developed by the Gamaleya institute, is a viral-vector vaccine using Ad26 for the first dose and Ad5 for the second.
- The mRNA platform belongs to the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines; it was not used in India's mass vaccination programme.
- India's vaccination drive began on 16 January 2021 and had delivered more than two billion doses by March 2023.
- Calling Covishield an mRNA vaccine. It is a chimpanzee adenovirus vector vaccine.
- Describing Covaxin as live-attenuated. The virus in it is killed, not weakened.
- Assuming Sputnik V's two doses use the same vector. They deliberately do not — Ad26 then Ad5.
As a vaccine-to-platform pair-matching item, as a statements question on how a particular vaccine works, or as a which-institution-developed-it question.
With reference to recent developments regarding 'Recombinant Vector Vaccines', consider the following statements: 1. Genetic engineering is applied in the development of these vaccines. 2. Bacteria and viruses are used as vectors. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer(c) Both 1 and 2
The platform behind two of the three pairs here, examined on its own. Covishield and Sputnik V are both recombinant vector vaccines, built by inserting the spike gene into a harmless carrier virus — which is the genetic engineering that UPSC question asks about.
CDS_GK_2020_II_Q562020Which one of the following Indian institutes was approved by the Drugs Controller General of India for conducting human trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine candidate?
- (a) Bharat Biotech
- (b) AIIMS
- (c) Serum Institute of India
- (d) National Institute of Epidemiology
Answer(c) Serum Institute of India
The other half of the Covishield fact, asked while the vaccine was still in trials. Fixing Covishield to the Serum Institute and to the Oxford-AstraZeneca design is what stops a candidate mislabelling it as an mRNA vaccine two years later.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, is based on which one of the following platforms?
- (a)Whole-virion inactivated virus
- (b)Non-replicating viral vector
- (c)Messenger RNA
- (d)Recombinant protein subunit
Answer(b) Non-replicating viral vector — a replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus, ChAdOx1, carrying the gene for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following COVID-19 vaccines used in India was developed on a plasmid-DNA platform?
- (a)Covaxin
- (b)Covovax
- (c)ZyCoV-D
- (d)Corbevax
Answer(c) ZyCoV-D — Zydus Cadila's three-dose needle-free vaccine, which carried the spike gene on a plasmid rather than as messenger RNA.