Context:

• Bharat Biotech has received a pre-qualification from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Typbar Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine.
• This paves the way for supplies of the vaccine to UNICEF, Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) and Gavi supported countries, chairman and managing director Krishna Ella told mediapersons.

Typbar TCV:

• It is the first typhoid vaccine clinically proven to be administered to children from 6 months of age to adults, and confers long-term protection against typhoid fever.
• A release said the product had been evaluated in human challenge studies at Oxford University and typhoid conjugate vaccines had been recommended by WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had supported efforts that helped generate data for the pre-qualification.
• With WHO-SAGE recommendation, for use of TCV for use in infants between 6 and 23 months of age and catch up vaccinations for children between 2 and 15 years of age, countries could introduce the vaccine into their immunisation programmes.
• “With the recent Gavi Board approval of $85 million funding window to make the typhoid conjugate vaccine available in Gavi-supported countries, we now expect the first introductions to take place as soon as the first half of 2019.
• The company has priced Typbar TCV at $ 1.50/dose for procurement for GAVI-supported countries. “We announce a further reduction to around $1.0 or below/dose, post procurement of 100 million doses for LIC’s and LMIC’s.

Source:TH