Science and Technology › Health and disease
हिन्दी — Read in HindiVaccines and immunisation
New vaccines, the campaigns that deliver them, and the alliances that fund vaccines for the world. Prelims has asked about COVID-19 vaccine platforms and why pneumococcal conjugate vaccines matter for India.
Foundation note: The immunisation programme and how vaccines are made
Showing 2 of 4 articles, those that changed from 1 to 30 September 2026.Show all
Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations
Copy link to Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness InnovationsPrelims and Mains
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), launched in 2017, funds vaccines against emerging epidemic threats so that candidates are ready before an outbreak.
- A vaccine whose development begins when an outbreak does arrives too late to stop it, so the coalition pays for candidates in advance.
- India is a founding member of it.
- The Ind-CEPI Mission is India's arm of that effort, run by the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (BRIC-THSTI) and the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC).
- It delivered GEMCOVAC-19, India's first mRNA vaccine against COVID-19.
- Covishield, by contrast, is a viral vector vaccine and not an mRNA one.
What changed
13 Sep 2026
- The Minister restated India's position as the world's largest vaccine producer by volume, supplying more than 100 countries.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2022: COVID-19 vaccine platforms, including Covishield
Pneumococcal vaccines
Copy link to Pneumococcal vaccinesPrelims and Mains
Pneumococcal vaccines protect against Streptococcus pneumoniae, the bacterium that causes pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis when immunity weakens.
- It wears a sugary coat, the capsular polysaccharide, that differs from one serotype to the next.
- Every vaccine in use aims at that coat, so it protects only against the serotypes it includes.
- The ones left out, many of them carrying antibiotic resistance genes, then fill the space, which is serotype replacement.
Plain polysaccharide
- Example: Pneumovax 23
- Works poorly in infants
- Short lived protection
Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV)
- Polysaccharide linked to a carrier protein
- Stronger, longer response
- The number in PCV13 gives the serotypes covered
What changed
3 Sep 2026
- British scientists reported ZPY-CpG-Ch, a protein based candidate found by reverse vaccinology that carries three surface proteins shared across serotypes and so does not depend on the capsule.
- 80 to 100 per cent of mice survived lethal serotype 1, but only four serotypes were tested and it did not clear bacteria from the upper airways.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2020: why Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccines matter in India