ZyCoV-D 

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• Indian pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila is going to apply to the Central Drugs Regulator (DGCI) for emergency approval of the corona vaccine ZyCoV-D.

• If approved, it will be the world’s first DNA-based vaccine. With this, the number of vaccines available in the country will increase to 5. So far, Serum Institute’s Covishield, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Russia’s Sputnik-V and US’s Moderna vaccines have been approved in India.

• ZyCoV-D is a needle free vaccine. This allows the vaccine to be injected into people’s skin under high pressure. 

About ZyCoV-D 

• ZyCoV-D, a plasmid DNA vaccine, comes under the Vaccine Discovery Programme supported by the Department of Biotechnology under the National Biopharma Mission. 

• Plasmids are circular deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) vectors that can be used as vaccines to prevent various types of diseases.