Covaxin assessed on same criteria as other Covid-19 vaccines: WHO refutes Bharat Biotech chief’s claims

KEY STORY

•  The World Health Organization (WHO) rejected Bharat Biotech’s chief Krishna Ella claim that Covaxin faced intensive scrutiny by the world health body and said that the COVID-19 vaccine was assessed on exactly the same criteria as other vaccines produced across the world.

• The WHO told Economic Times that the Emergency Use Listing is “a neutral, technically rigorous and non-political process with independent regulatory experts contributing to evaluations and advising WHO”.

• The world health body’s reaction came after Ella told ‘Times Now Summit 2021’ that Covaxin went through a lot of scrutinies by the WHO as compared to other approved COVID vaccines.

• Bharat Biotech had submitted EOI (Expression of Interest) to the WHO on April 19, 2021 for Covaxin’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL). The WHO granted EUL to India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine on November 3.

• Covaxin has demonstrated 77.8 per cent effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19.

• “The efficacy analysis demonstrates Covaxin to be 77.8 per cent effective against symptomatic Covid-19, through evaluation of 130 confirmed cases, with 24 observed in the vaccine group versus 106 in the placebo group,” The Lancet said.

• India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine by Bharat Biotech was developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV).

• Covaxin is a 2-dose vaccination regimen given 28 days apart. It is a vaccine with no sub-zero storage and ready to use liquid presentation in multi-dose vials. It can be stored and transported between 2-8 degrees Celsius.

• The WHO has earlier listed the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, two AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines,  AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India, COVID-19 vaccine Ad26.COV2.S developed by Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) and China’s Sinopharm for emergency use.