What is R21/Matrix-M™ ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, a vaccine against malaria associated with the Serum Institute of India. R21/Matrix-M is the world's second WHO-recommended malaria vaccine. The World Health Organization recommended it in October 2023 and prequalified it at the end of December 2023, clearing the way for United Nations agencies and Gavi to procure it; Ghana's Food and Drugs Authority had granted the first national approval in April 2023, with Nigeria following. Read the name and it tells you the two halves of the product: 'R21' is the antigen — a circumsporozoite-protein-based particle targeting the sporozoite stage of Plasmodium falciparum, designed at the University of Oxford's Jenner Institute — and 'Matrix-M' is the saponin-based adjuvant licensed from Novavax that sharpens the immune response. The Serum Institute of India in Pune is the development partner that took it through late-stage trials and manufactures it, and it is on the strength of Indian manufacturing at scale, with capacity spoken of in the range of a hundred million-plus doses a year, that R21 is a cheap enough vaccine to be deployed across Africa. That is why the key marks (a). Be precise about the wording for a tougher paper: the antigen was designed at Oxford's Jenner Institute and the adjuvant is Novavax's, so 'developed by Serum Institute of India' is shorthand for a partnership in which SII is the development-and-manufacturing partner rather than the sole inventor. Nothing in that qualification touches the answer, because the other three options are wrong on the disease, the company, or both.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Right disease, wrong company — the classic half-correct distractor. Bharat Biotech International of Hyderabad is a major Indian vaccine maker, known for Covaxin, the Rotavac rotavirus vaccine and the typhoid conjugate vaccine, but R21/Matrix-M is not its product. R21 belongs to the Oxford Jenner Institute–Serum Institute of India partnership, with the Matrix-M adjuvant from Novavax.  (c) Wrong on the disease, and wrong in a way that should be an instant reject. There is no licensed vaccine against HIV/AIDS anywhere in the world; despite four decades of research, candidates have repeatedly failed in efficacy trials because HIV mutates rapidly and integrates into the host genome. Any option claiming a marketed AIDS vaccine can be eliminated on sight, whichever company is named.  (d) Wrong on both counts — there is no licensed AIDS vaccine, and Bharat Biotech has no connection with R21/Matrix-M. This option exists only to complete the two-by-two grid of disease and manufacturer.

Concept: Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites — falciparum is the deadliest species — and is transmitted by the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. A parasite is a far harder vaccine target than a virus or a bacterium: it has a multi-stage life cycle in two hosts, it presents different surface proteins at each stage, and natural infection does not confer lasting sterilising immunity, which is why humans in endemic areas can be reinfected year after year. That is why the first malaria vaccine took a century of effort to arrive and why both licensed vaccines aim at the same narrow window — the sporozoite that the mosquito injects, before it reaches the liver.

State PCS 2024 Q55 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q55 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer