VC of Streptococcal Infections BHU Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar and Prof. JNU The team of scientists including Atul Kumar Johri has achieved great achievement. Scientists here have developed a vaccine against the streptococcal, a dangerous throat infection.
Anuj Jaiswal, Varanasi
While the world is struggling with an unprecedented corona epidemic, the scientific world is also working day and night to find vaccines against Kovid-19. In such a situation, the Vice Chancellor of Kashi Hindu University, Prof. Rakesh Bhatnagar and Prof. JNU The team of scientists including Atul Kumar Johri has achieved a major achievement. The team of researchers has developed a vaccine against Streptococcal Infections, a dangerous throat infection.
This infection is affecting the health of millions of people worldwide and killing more than five lakh people every year. There is currently no vaccine to treat this infection. This historical study is published on 15 July in the internationally prestigious research paper, Nature Communication. According to BHU Vice Chancellor Rakesh Bhatnagar, the vaccine
was first tested
against several serotypes in mice. Which led to 70 to 90 percent immunization results. Professor Bhatnagar started the study about three years ago with JNU professor Atul Kumar Johri and other researchers.
Patent application, waiting for a company to come forward
Patents have been applied for in this regard, and the team is now waiting for a company to come forward to work towards pre-clinical studies and human testing of vaccines and to reach the vaccine market. He said that the team of scientists detected the cross protective vaccine using reverse vaccinology. In this process, anti-bacterial antibodies evolved during immunization in mice. Which destroyed Group A Streptococcus (GAS) bacteria present in serotypes of different geographical regions. The study showed immunity from 76 to 92% of the GAS serotype.
This bacteria gives rise to dangerous throat infections
Streptococcus pyogenes is a common bacteria causing dangerous throat infections. These bacteria, also known as Group A Streptococcus (GAS), are the cause of throat irritation, pus-causing diseases. This highly contagious skin infection that occurs mainly in newborns and children, causes soft tissue infections, streptococcal toxic shock syndrome, Group A Streptococcus-caused high fever and heart related diseases. Group A Streptococcus causes 61.6 million cases of pharyngitis (throat irritation) annually and 18 million cases of severe malaise.
Streptococcus pyogenes is the ninth most infectious bacteria in the category of smallpox, Haemophilia influenzae type B and hepatitis B, when viewed critically ill and mortality. It mainly causes severe malaise and high mortality in low and middle income countries. The lack of data, mainly in South Asia and Sub-Saharan African countries, does not give a true picture of GAS cases. Pro. Rakesh Bhatnagar has also played a leading role in finding anthrax vaccine and rabies DNA vaccine in the past. He noted that the results of his study on streptococcal infection are of utmost importance from a broad interest perspective.
