Thread by @agentgreenglass

Just read the news that Haffkine Institute, in Mumbai, has been given permission to produce Covaxin. Here's a long thread on something interesting I had read up a while back. We'll start with a gentleman born in Odessa, Ukaraine, in 1860.

Under the influence of his professor, Elie Metchnikoff, he developed an interest in unicellular organisms. Debarred from a professorship because he was Jewish, he left Russia and followed his mentor to the newly opened Pasteur Institute. Yep, started by Louis Pasteur.

Same guy we all read about in school when we studied pasteurisation. Fun fact: he was quite the dude, and created the first vaccine for rabies, and also, anthrax. Anyway, back to our original gent, who had landed up here from Russia.

At the Pasteur Institute, he had begun to study vibrio cholerae, the micro organism shown to be the causative agent of Asiatic cholera. Oh, and this would be a good time to mention, that the gentleman we've been talking about, his name was Haffkine.

In 1880, Pasteur discovered that injection of a live culture of chicken cholera, in which the virulence of the bacilli had been reduced, protected chickens against a lethal attack of the disease.

Obviously, people were like, 'you nutters, how you gonna save someone by injecting them with bacilli. very silli.' Thankfully, microbiologists, once they have a germ of an idea (#sorrynotsorry) , don't let go.

To cut a long story short, Haffkine was much inspired by him, and continued to follow this theory & do lab tests, till in 1892, he inoculated himself with a cholera vaccine he had developed. But the real test of the vaccine, would be on the field.

And the Asiatic cholera vaccine led him to be invited to India, by Dufferin, a former viceroy of India. There was a lot of initial resistance to the vaccine. The locals must have been like dude, who you to just come and start jabbing us. And where's proof that this works?

So Haffkine went to Agra to innoculate military & civilian volunteers. And then gradually some regiments. And as people became more confident, he went to Calcutta, Assam & the tea gardens. In England, the vaccine was perceived a success finally. But our story doesn't end here.

In September 1896, the plague hit Bombay, and the government of India, was like dude, we need help. So yep, Haffkine was found! Much impressed by his anti cholera vaccine, they asked him to come to Bombay, and find something similar for the plague. Haffkine got right down to it.

In October 1896, he was given a room & a corridor at the Petit Laboratory, at Grant Medical College. By Jan 1897, he was innoculating himself with a vaccine. What a boss! In the same month, an outbreak of plague happened at Her Majesty's House of Correction (fancy term for jail).

The vaccine was used to innoculate prisoners at Bycullah jail. Slowly, as people realised the vaccine did work, demand for it shot up. And in 1899, the Plague Reasearch Laboratory moved to the government house in Parel. Where it still stands as the Haffkine Institute.

From the opening of the laboratory up to the end of 1925, nearly 26 million doses of the anti plague vaccine were sent out. And it all started with one man, who they would not make professor, because of his religion. There's a lesson somewhere there :)

PS: I'm not a microbiologist or an authority on this subject. This is all stuff I found on the internet. Specially in Bacteriogists by Barbara J Hawgood, James Lind Library and Haffkine Bacteriologist - a great saviour of mankind ( H I Jhala). This is pieced together from there.