Covaxin likely to get approval for emergency use within 24 hours, says WHO official

New Delhi : World Health Organization’s (WHO) technical committee is evaluating data to give Covaxin approval for emergency use within 24 hours. Speaking to the journalists, the global health body’s spokesperson Margaret Harris informed that the technical advisory group is currently reviewing data on India’s indigenously-made vaccine against coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Its been months since when Bharat Biotech, the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company which developed Covaxin, is awaiting formal nod to its COVID-19 vaccine.“On Covaxin, the technical advisory group that reviews all data for a potential EUL are reviewing that data today. Now if all is in place and all goes well & if the committee is satisfied, we would expect a recommendation within next 24 hours or so,” Dr Margaret Harris said.

Bharat Biotech had submitted the Expression of Interest (EOI) for the emergency use approval in April, but WHO has said it needs more data from the company. It is important to note that without the EUA, Covaxin will not be considered an accepted vaccine by most countries around the world. This will make the travelling of Indians difficult who have taken the dose to travel internationally.

Here are the names of the vaccines approved by the WHO so far:

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.