Can typhoid be an illness of the past? :EMPOWER IAS

Can typhoid be an illness of the past?

New vaccine against typhoid, made by an Indian vaccine manufactorer, Bharat Biotech of Hyderabad, has been approved by WHO.
With the use of this vaccine, the world will soon close to get rid of typhoid just like smallpox.
The journal Nature Medicine called this one of the “Treatments that made headlines in 2018.”

The WHO has approved a vaccine against typhoid fever, called Typbar TCV, short for typhoid conjugate vaccine.
It is the only vaccine deemed safe enough for use in infants starting at 6 months of age.
This vaccine is the first conjugate vaccine — a vaccine in which a weak antigen (of the typhoid germ) is attached to a strong antigen (from the tetanus germ) to elicit antibody responses — against a bacterial disease (typhoid) that “affects up to 20 million people annually.
Vaccine Typbar TCV, creation and trial was first published by Bharat Biotech in 2013.
This vaccine was tried in a unique human challenge model by an Oxford University group, and found to be superior to other competitive vaccines.
Based on this, the vaccine has been cleared for introduction in the National Immunization Programmes in Africa and Asia.

Around one-third of the world’s vaccines are made in our country today by just a handful of biotech firms and distributed across the Indian continent, Africa and Asia.
Previously, India imported vaccines made abroad and manufactured them here using the same process, on license.
It is only when biotech firms forayed into the discovery of local strains of bacteria and viruses that indigenous creation of vaccines using modern biological methods began happening.
Recently, vaccine against typhoid was made by injecting live, but grossly weakened typhoid germs into the human body, provoking the body to mount immunochemicals called antibodies.
Later, scientists found that it was not good to use live germs, since there are unwanted side-effects. Hence, they started using an important molecular component (the polymer that coats or covers the surface of the germ) which can elicit the same antibody from the injected ‘host’.

The four important points that they pointed out for such success were:

Identify the therapeutic area and the scale of demand
investment and partnership
innovation through collaboration with scientists and clinics,
Connect with national and global agencies- plus a current Good manufacturing Practice (cGMP) setup.

Bharat Biotech has done all these in good measure. Their successful introduction of the Rotavirus vaccine is an early example of what has been called the ‘Team Science Model’ involving clinicians, scientists, national and global support groups, and the national government.
Another such team science effort was their vaccine JenVac against Japanese Encephalitis

Typhoid is a bacterial infection that can lead to a high fever, diarrhea, and vomiting.
It can be fatal. It is caused by the bacteria Salmonella typhi.
The bacterium lives in the intestines and bloodstream of humans. It spreads between individuals by direct contact with the feces of an infected person.
No animals carry this disease, so transmission is always human to human.
The infection is often passed on through contaminated food and drinking water, and it is more prevalent in places where handwashing is less frequent. It can also be passed on by carriers who do not know they carry the bacteria.
Symptoms: Symptoms include a high fever and gastrointestinal problems
It occurs predominantly in association with poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water.

A national immunization programme (NIP) is the organizational component of Ministries of Health charged with preventing disease, disability, and death from vaccine-preventable diseases in children and adults.
A NIP is a government programme that operates within the framework of overall health policy.
The national immunization programme is used interchangeably with the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) that originally focused on preventing vaccine-preventable diseases in children.
All countries have a national immunization programme to protect the population against vaccine-preventable diseases.

Source)

thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/can-typhoid-be-an-illness-of-the-past/article29667473.ece