After the government’s two failed attempts to get an interested party to develop a vaccine against the Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD), the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has now floated another call inviting vaccine manufacturers.
However, experts believe private companies will not come forward this time too for the loss-making proposition.
While the annual KFD season is expected to start in October-November as per usual trends, vaccine development is still a few years away.
Only five lakh people in the state are estimated to live in the catchment area of KFD, especially in villages adjoining forest areas. The disease, transmitted largely through ticks, has no specific treatment and causes deaths in 3-15% of infected people.
The government had withdrawn a previous KFD vaccine last year owing to efficacy concerns. After this, the first call for developing a new vaccine was published by the union government’s Department of Biotechnology last December. This call was intended only for academic institutions and was unsuccessful.
The second call, inviting Expression of Interest (EoI) from companies, was from ICMR this February. Though senior officials claimed that a company was soon to be finalised, ICMR floated yet another invite on June 13 saying the response to the previous call was inadequate. However, the clauses in both invites are the same.
As per both documents, the company has to develop the vaccine, and can then manufacture and commercialise it. ICMR will share the virus isolate needed for the research, offer technical support and facilitate clinical trials.
The documents are mum on any funding support for the company, even though vaccine development alone will cost crores of rupees and the target population will not be able to afford high-cost vaccines.
Virologist Dr Jacob John said, "It's unrealistic to expect a private company to develop a vaccine for a disease that has low prevalence and is mainly among the poor. Even if the company does research, the trials may fail. So, the government institutions should develop the vaccine, and then the government should pay a manufacturer for production."
With inadequate disease surveillance and increasing tick density in the affected region, residents are at high risk, said another KFD expert.
Dr Nivedita Gupta, head of ICMR's Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases Division, was unavailable for comment.