The Central government on Tuesday decided to fast track approvals for foreign-produced Covid vaccines that have been in use in other countries. With this approval, the Centre has planned to expand the basket of vaccines for domestic use and increase the pace and coverage of vaccination. In its notification, the Central government said that the Covid vaccination is one of the critical pillars of Covid control and management strategy adopted by the Centre.
Currently, three vaccines Covaxin by Bharat Biotech and Covishield by Serum Institute of India and Sputnik by Dr Reddy’s, have received emergency approvals from the national regulator Drugs Controller General of India.
The Drugs Controller General of India has granted permission for restricted emergency use of the Russian Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V with certain conditions, the Union Health Ministry announced on Tuesday, while stating that Dr Reddy’s Laboratories will import the vaccine for use in the country. The approval came after the Subject Expert Committee on Covid-19 on Monday recommended granting approval to Sputnik V for restricted emergency use with certain regulatory conditions.
In May 2020, India constituted a task force headed by principal scientific advisor, K. Vijay Raghavan, to encourage research and development for vaccine manufacture, and also constituted an expert group called NEGVAC in August 2020.
India, now the second most affected nation by Covid-19, on Tuesday recorded a massive surge of 161,736 Covid-19 cases. With this, India’s Covid tally has shot up to 13,689,453 cases, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data. The country also witnessed 880 fatalities due to Covid-19 in a single day. The death toll from the deadly infection stands at 171,089.
Since January 16, India has given out close to 106 million doses to become the country with the fastest vaccination drive. But the country has one of the largest populations to reach in the world, a challenge that became stark in recent weeks as a surge in cases drove people to vaccination centres, many of which ran out of doses.
The first 100 beneficiaries of such foreign vaccines shall be assessed for seven days for safety outcomes before it is rolled out for further immunization programme within the country. The Union Government, after due consideration, has accepted the recommendation of NEGVAC.