The government is working actively with COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna to see how it can be made available in the country. Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was granted emergency use authorization last month.
Dr VK Paul, NITI Aayog member (Health), at a press briefing said Moderna vaccine is under emergency use authorization. “The government is working actively with the manufacturers to see how to make this vaccine available in the country, importing it into the country, those efforts are on the process that has to be gone through is being actively pursued.”
In regards to drug firm Zydus Cadilla, Dr Paul said the company had submitted its third phase trial results to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) last week. “Zydus Cadilla has submitted its phase-3 trial results to the DCGI last week and scientific evidence is being probed and the process of exchange of information is actively going on,” he said. “In this trial children were also included and we are hoping that after all this data gets evaluated through scientific process then recommendations will be followed, and if there is enough evidence to support vaccination by this vaccine for children between 12-18 years then that will also be provided at that time depending upon the robustness of the data and scientific evidence.”
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India is also preparing to use a local version of Novavax vaccine, which will be produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII). The drug maker said the vaccine was more than 90% effective in a late-stage US-based clinical trial.
The government has so far given more than 260 million doses of three approved vaccines – Covishield, Covaxin and Sputnik V. It has also given the green light to Cipla to import Moderna vaccine, which has shown 95% efficacy against the coronavirus. The government aims to vaccinate its population by the end of this year, but the vaccination drive has been riddled by slow pace, shortage of doses and vaccine hesitancy.
