PremiumIf approved, adults can take Covovax as a booster dose irrespective of their previous doses being Covishield or Covaxin
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) will meet next Wednesday, 11 January to take a decision on granting Serum Institute of India's (SII) Covovax, a vaccine to fight coronavirus infection, market authorization as the heterologous booster dose.
The Covovax has proven effective against the Omicron strains of coronavirus. It is to be noted that according to Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG), Omicron sub-variant XBB.1.5 is the dominant strain in Covid cases in India.
If granted permission, adults can take Covovax as a booster dose irrespective of their previous doses being Covishield or Covaxin, news agency PTI reported. This comes at a time when global Covid cases have rose alarmingly causing concern for another deadly wave of the pandemic.
Covovax is manufactured by the SII through technology transfer from Novavax. Covovax is a recombinant spike protein nanoparticle vaccine. It is administered intramuscularly in two doses, with SII recommending a gap of three weeks between the jabs.
It has been approved by the European Medicines Agency for conditional marketing authorisation. It was granted emergency-use listing by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 17 December, 2021.
Prakash Kumar Singh, Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs at the Serum Institute of India (SII), had written a letter to the the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) recently for the approval to Covovax as a heterologous booster dose for adults in view of the escalating pandemic situation in some countries, an official source told.
The DCGI had approved Covovax for restricted use in emergency situations for adults on 28 December 2021, for those in the 12-17 age group on 9 March, 2022, and also in children aged 7- 11 years on 28 June, 2022, subject to certain conditions.
In August 2020, US-based vaccine maker Novavax Inc. had announced a licence agreement with the SII for the development and commercialization of NVX-CoV2373, its Covid-19 vaccine candidate, in India and low-and-middle-income countries.
Meanwhile, a total of 121 new coronavirus infections and one death were reported in 24 hours. The number of active cases came down to 2,319, according to Union health ministry data. The death toll increased to 5,30,722 with one death reported from Delhi in the last 24 hours.