COVID-19: Bharat Biotech's Covaxin likely to get WHO nod this week

Bharat Biotech's Covaxin will get approval from the World Health Organisation (WHO) this week, sources told news agency ANI.

The government had informed Parliament in July that it has submitted all documents required for Emergency Use Listing (EUL). WHO usually takes up to six weeks to decide on Emergency Use Listing (EUL) submissions.

The development comes a month after Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya met WHO Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan and held discussions over the global health body's approval for the homegrown COVID-19 vaccine.

This is to be noted that all documents required for Emergency Use Listing (EUL) have been submitted by Bharat Biotech for Covaxin to WHO as of July 9 following which the review process by the global health body had commenced.

Bharat Biotech in its Phase 3 trial results of Covaxin had claimed that it demonstrates overall vaccine efficacy of 77.8%

The Hyderabad-based company had said that the Covaxin has been proven 'safe' in India's largest efficacy trial and shared the final Phase-3 Pre-Print data published on medRxiv.

Meanwhile, the Office of Mansukh Mandaviya informed that India on Monday achieved the milestone of administering 75 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses.

With regard to vaccines of foreign manufacturers like Moderna and Pfizer, Arora said there are administrative issues such as indemnity and liability clauses.

On India’s aim to vaccinate all of its adult population by year-end, Arora expressed optimism about achieving the goal.