On the eve of the Diwali festive season WHO granted the emergency use listing to Covaxin. This development came after Bharat Biotech submitted an expression of interest 8 months ago in April. The decision will enable the people who were administered Covaxin to travel internationally, without undergoing a quarantine period.
After more than eight months since India first started mass production of vaccines, the World Health Organization (WHO) has granted an emergency use licence (EUL) to Covaxin, the vaccine indigenously developed by Bharat Biotech. The good news is the acknowledgement of India’s efforts in combating the deadly pandemic for more than 20 months.
Vaccines usually have a long and arduous development cycle going through multiple phases of testing and trials before they can be declared effective. The Covid-19 virus had such a high rate of infection that it forced many changes in the development of vaccines.
Vaccines were being developed on a war footing as the scientific community agreed that they are the most reliable and safe way of immunising the general public from the Covid virus.
Bharat Biotech had started developing the vaccine when the first wave of Covid hit India in early 2020, one of the only two companies who had started work on vaccines. The other vaccine Covishield was developed by the Serum Institute of India in collaboration with Oxford and AstraZeneca.
Bharat Biotech is no stranger to vaccine development and manufacturing. At the time when it started work on the Covid19 vaccine, it already had 15 other vaccines for different diseases in the market, including the rotavirus vaccine that was developed after a decade of research.
Covaxin has been approved for use in India under emergency use authorisation since January this year. But due to the lack of a EUL issued by WHO, Covaxin wasn’t considered valid by many countries. This led to travellers being forced to spend a mandatory quarantine. This has caused great discomfort to many travellers visiting international countries. Many Indians who are part of the global manufacturing community were not being able to visit trade fairs, site visits, same with other sectors. On the other hand, some countries proactively approved Covaxin on their own.
The Emergency Use Listing approval by WHO validates the international safety and quality standards of COVAXIN®. Bharat Biotech is motivated to mitigate the worldwide pandemic. #Indianinnovationglobalvalidation #indiasfirstindigenouscovidvaccine #covid19 #covaxin @WHO pic.twitter.com/zN7wefyP5U
— BharatBiotech (@BharatBiotech) November 3, 2021
India has set many records by vaccinating more than 109 crore population in record time. India was generous in supplying the vaccine to the world along with starting vaccination of her people. India came bravely on many fronts – be it by making PPE Kits, overcoming oxygen shortages, maligning international media coverages, and finally manufacturing vaccines. The granting of EUL to Covaxin is an acknowledgement of the research credentials of the Indian medical sector and will allow the way for its widespread distribution around the world. Currently, 96 countries have recognized and given approval to the Covaxin dose.
