Zydus Cadila's COVID-19 vaccine 'ZyCoV-D' will be needle-free.
Zydus Cadila Vaccine News: The Government is likely to give its nod for emergency use authorisation (EUA) to Zydus Cadila's needle-free Covid-19 vaccine 'ZyCoV-D' this week, news agency ANI reported on Monday. 'ZyCoV-D' will be the sixth Covid vaccine to be available in India.
Five Covid vaccines - Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik V, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine - have already been approved by the Government so far.
'ZyCoV-D' will be a three-dose vaccine and the companys plans to manufacture 10-12 crore doses annually, Zydus Cadila had said in a statement last month. The pharma major added that it had conducted the largest trial of Covid vaccine in India spreading across 50 testing centres.
Last week, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had said in Parliament that four more Indian pharmaceutical companies may start the vaccine production by October-November to accelerate the inoculation drive.
Giving the data on vaccine allocation, Mandaviya said that even 7 to 9 per cent of the doses that remain unutilised by the private hospitals are being used by the government vaccination centres.
Mandaviya added that Biologicals E and Novartis vaccines will also be available in the market in the coming days, while Zydus Cadila will soon get an emergency-use nod from an expert committee.
Replying to a query by Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Amar Patnaik about the vaccine roll out plan for 12-18 years old, the minister said, "The government's target is to vaccinate the entire population and constant efforts are being made to achieve this."
(With inputs from agencies)
