Bharat Biotech Covaxin likely to get WHO nod by this month

Written by Ruchika Sharma Published On 2021-09-14T14:39:38+05:30 | Updated On 14 Sept 2021 5:27 PM IST

Bharat Biotech Covaxin likely to get WHO nod by this month

New Delhi: The World Health Organization's approval for the indigenous Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, developed by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, is likely to come this month, official sources said Monday.

The WHO has so far approved Covid vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, US pharma majors Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, China's Sinopharm and Oxford-AstraZeneca for emergency use.

Covaxin is one of the six vaccines that have received emergency use authorisation from India's drug regulator and is being used in the nationwide inoculation programme, alongwith Covishield and Sputnik V.

"The WHO approval for Covaxin is likely this month," an official source as quoted saying by PTI.

The Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that the officials of the World Health Organisation (WHO) had a meeting with those of Bharat Biotech and the Hyderabad-based vaccine maker's dossier for Emergency Use Listing (EUL) of Covaxin is under review by the technical experts for consideration.

Speaking to ANI, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh had informed that India has been offered 7.5 million doses of Moderna vaccine through WHO's COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) program.

The WHO Regional Director had said, "Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Sinovac and Sinopharm have been granted EUL by the WHO. For COVAXIN, an expression of interest for EUL has been made to WHO by Bharat Biotech. WHO has already conducted a pre-submission meeting with the company following which a dossier has been submitted by Bharat Biotech to WHO in early July. The dossier is currently under review by the technical experts for consideration of EUL."

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Source : with agency inputs

Ruchika Sharma

Ruchika Sharma joined Medical Dialogue as an Correspondent for the Business Section in 2019. She covers all the updates in the Pharmaceutical field, Policy, Insurance, Business Healthcare, Medical News, Health News, Pharma News, Healthcare and Investment. She has completed her B.Com from Delhi University and then pursued postgraduation in M.Com. She can be contacted at editorial@medicaldialogues.in Contact no. 011-43720751