- A top Indian vaccine official has allayed fears of the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine after South Africa halted its rollout.
- South Africa received a million doses from the The Serum Institute of India last week, however the brakes were put on the rollout due to new variant concerns.
- "We are not worried at the moment," said Vinod Kumar Paul, a top Indian vaccine official.
India said on Tuesday it had no concerns over the efficacy of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine despite South Africa putting it on hold, and ordered 10 million more doses of the shot for its own huge immunisation campaign.
South Africa delayed use of the vaccine after researchers found it offered minimal protection against mild-to-moderate Covid-19 disease caused by the country's dominant coronavirus variant.
India, with the highest number of infections after the United States, has yet to detect the South African variant and will continue to use the vaccine in an inoculation drive that has covered 6.3 million front-line workers since 16 January.
"Our vaccination programme is robust and valid, and I assure you that we are going ahead with it, not worried at the moment," Vinod Kumar Paul, a top Indian vaccine official, told a news conference.
"We will intensify our surveillance and we will be watching other developments in due course."
It is not yet clear whether or not the world needs a new set of vaccines to fight different variants of the novel coronavirus but scientists are working on new ones so there is no reason for alarm, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said on Tuesday.https://t.co/Wu3LaRrx3p
— News24 (@News24) February 9, 2021
The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker, has licenced the vaccine from AstraZeneca and Oxford University and markets it as Covishield for low-and middle-income countries.
India has ordered 10 million more doses of Covishield on top of 11 million supplied earlier, an SII spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday. SII has agreed to sell at least 100 million doses to the government at a discounted price of 200 rupees ($2.74) each, though the government says firm orders will be staggered based on its needs, and also on vaccine shelf-life.
With newer coronavirus variants emerging and some showing "immune escapes", vaccine developers might have to redesign their vaccines, so that it offers stronger protection. But how would this work? | @zakiyahebrahim https://t.co/nnTuRUgDAB
— News24 (@News24) February 8, 2021
Covishield is about 72% effective, based on late-stage trials done abroad, India's drug regulator says.
The country is also using the Covaxin shot developed at home by Bharat Biotech with the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research. Bharat Biotech has supplied 5.5 million doses to the government and is selling 4.5 million more, a company spokeswoman told Reuters.
The government wants to cover 300 million people by August, reaching the elderly and those with existing conditions by March.
India has reported 10.85 million infections and more than 155 000 deaths - though cases have fallen sharply since September.
There are some foreign policy gains for India to be made in sharing its vaccines with South Africa.https://t.co/grcVg04ujF
— News24 (@News24) February 2, 2021
Paul said Johnson & Johnson could manufacture its shot in India. He also said many more vaccines, including Russia's Sputnik V, Cadila Healthcare's ZyCov-D and a Novavax product, were in the queue.
"India is fortunate to have two great made-in-India vaccines, and as many as six-seven vaccines in the pipeline and perhaps many more," he said, days after Pfizer Inc pulled an application seeking emergency-use authorisation in the country.
The US company had declined to immediately do a small local safety study for its shot and produce it in India, unlike the other vaccine developers.
The health department has temporarily slammed the brakes on the rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after a new study showed it was not effective against the dominant 501Y.V2 variant. | @TebogoMonama https://t.co/lGviliFl8Z
— News24 (@News24) February 8, 2021
New Delhi, meanwhile, is aggressively pushing the SII and Bharat Biotech vaccines abroad as part of a diplomatic campaign to recoup ground lost to China.
Bharat Biotech told Reuters it could export its vaccine to Brazil and the United Arab Emirates this week, a major success for the shot approved at home for emergency use without efficacy data from a late-stage trial.
The company expects results from an ongoing trial involving 25 800 participants in India only by March, though the country's drug regulator has called the vaccine safe and effective amid criticism from doctors and health experts. A study on 26 participants has found Covaxin effective against the UK strain of the coronavirus.
Brazil is in talks to buy an additional 20 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by China's Sinovac Biotech, the governor of Sao Paulo told Reuters in a Thursday interview, in a show of confidence in the Chinese shot.https://t.co/hjJkEWjr99
— News24 (@News24) February 5, 2021
Bharat Biotech has also applied to conduct a Phase III trial for Covaxin in Brazil, which plans to import 8 million doses in February and another 12 million in March.
Bharat Biotech has also sought emergency use authorisation in the Philippines.
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