Ground staff walk past a container held in Cargo Terminal 2 of Indira Gandhi International Airport, which officials say will be used as a COVID-19 vaccine handling and distribution center in New Delhi, India, on December 22, 2020. word.
Anushree Fadnavis | Reuters
India’s medical regulator on Sunday approved the final use for the emergency use of two coronavirus vaccines, one developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford and the other by local company Bharat Biotech.
The second most populous country in the world is now expected to launch a massive vaccination program within a few weeks, with the AstraZeneca / Oxford bullet taking the lead and Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN being administered under stricter conditions, as no efficacy data has been released. .
The overall efficacy of the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine was 70.42%, while Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN ‘was safe and provided a robust immune response’, said VG Somani, India’s drug controller.
The UK-developed AstraZeneca / Oxford survey is being made locally by the Serum Institute of India (SII) and will get the COVISHIELD brand, while Bharat Biotech has partnered with the government-run Indian Medical Research Council.
“Vaccines from M / s Serum and M / s Bharat Biotech are approved for limited use in emergency situations,” Somani read out from a written statement during a press conference. Somani did not ask questions.
Both vaccines are administered in two doses and stored at 2-8 ° C (36 to 48 ° F). Sources told Reuters on Saturday that the doses should be given four weeks apart.
Somani explained that the Bharat Biotech vaccine has been approved “in the public interest as an abundant precaution, in clinical trial mode, to have more options for vaccinations, especially in case of infection by mutant strains”.
Premier Narendra Modi welcomed the approvals.
“It will make every Indian proud that the two vaccines that have been approved for emergencies are being made in India!” he said on Twitter, calling it a sign of an ‘independent’ country.
SII, the world’s largest vaccine producer, has already piled up more than 50 million doses of AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine, even without a formal agreement with the government.
CEO Adar Poonawalla said all the risks that @SerumInstIndia took in stockpiling the vaccine had paid off. “COVISHIELD, India’s first vaccine against Covid-19, is approved, safe, effective and ready to go into operation in the coming weeks.”