Mumbai: Australia on Monday determined that India’s Covaxin vaccine manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech and China’s BBIBP-CorV vaccine would be recognised for the purpose of establishing a traveller’s vaccination status.
Australia’s approval for Covaxin comes at a time when the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for additional data to decide on the much-awaited Emergency Use List (EUL) for Covaxin.
The WHO met on 26 October and delayed awarding the EUL to Covaxin, demanding more technical details to conduct a final ‘risk-benefit assessment’. Experts from the world health body will meet on 3 November for the final evaluation of Bharat Biotech’s vaccine.
The Technical Advisory Group for Emergency Use List (TAG-EUL) provides recommendations to the WHO on whether a Covid 19 vaccine can be listed for emergency use.
The Hyderabad-based pharma company, which has developed Covaxin in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), had submitted an EOI (Expression of Interest) for the EUL of Covaxin to the WHO on April 19, 2021.
Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, two AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines manufactured by (AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea and the Serum Institute of India), Ad26.COV2.S developed by Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) and China’s Sinopharm have been approved for emergency use by the WHO so far.
The vaccine is developed using Whole-Virion Inactivated Vero Cell-derived platform technology. It is a 2-dose vaccination regimen given 28 days apart.
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