Some good news on the very first day of the new year -- Covishield, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca in collaboration with the Serum Institute of India has got conditional approval for use in India by an expert panel today.?
With this, the Covishield vaccine (with the Oxford vaccine formula) has become the first candidate to get such an approval for use in India.
The emergency use of the vaccine has been recommended by the subject expert committee (SEC) of the national drugs regulator. The recommendation comes with the condition that individuals who are getting vaccinated will be very closely monitored.?
Following the recommendation, SII will have to?seek approval?from DCGI (Drugs Controller General Of India) for the use of Covishield vaccine candidate in India. With the recommendation from the SEC, it is likely that the approval from the DCGI will be awarded very shortly.
A similar trend was seen with the rollout of the Pfizer BioNtech vaccine in the US. The vaccine candidate was first recommended by the expert committee and was then cleared for use by the FDA within 24 hours of the recommendation.
‘Covishield’ brand is the result of a contract between AstraZeneca and SII that lets the latter make the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate for use in India and other low- and middle-income countries. The vaccine has been found to have close to 100 percent efficacy in various trials.
Once out, Covishield vaccine will enable what is largely being considered as the largest vaccination drive in the history of human race. As the centre and states get set for the vaccination drive starting tomorrow, Covishield will possibly go down as the biggest protection against the coronavirus disease.