Indian coronavirus vaccine Covaxin that is manufactured by Bharat Biotech is yet to get approval from the World Health Organization (WHO) for Emergency use listing (EUL). Lakhs of Indians who took the shots of Covaxin are worried about their international travel as it is mandatory to get approval from the WHO. Bharat Biotech said that all the required documents for the emergency use listing of Covaxin are submitted to WHO on July 9th. Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Biotech told that the review process commenced recently and the approval will be received at the earliest. Bharat Biotech is also waiting for the EUL to supply the vaccines for global facilities like Covax.

The other Indian vaccine Covishield received approval from WHO long ago. Covaxin showed 93.4 percent efficacy against the severe Covid-19 and 63.6 percent efficacy against the asymptomatic Covid-19. Covaxin is widely distributed in India and the trials were conducted on 25,800 people and the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) said that the vaccine was well tolerated. All those who took the dose of Covaxin showed mild to no symptoms. Other vaccines that received approval from WHO are Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca- SK Bio/SII, Johnson & Johnson Janssen, Moderna and Sinopharm. Russian vaccine Sputnik V is now available in the Indian markets. Lakhs of students are now waiting for WHO to approve Covaxin for their international travels. After the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, several countries made it mandatory to allow flyers to get the vaccination shots that are approved by the WHO.

By Siva Kumar