The preparation is the ninth to receive the endorsement of the health agency and the first designed from components of the virus. It requires two doses.
The COVID-19 vaccine CovovaxTM, produced by the Serological Institute of India with a license from the American laboratory Novavax, obtained this Friday the authorization of emergency use from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The preparation is the second entirely developed in India and the ninth to receive endorsement. Its overall efficiency would be 89%.
It is the first subunit vaccine, that is, designed from virus components, authorized by the WHO, and joins a list that already included eight others, those manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca , in its two versions, Sinovac, Sinopharm and Bharat Biotech with its Covaxin vaccine, also from India, and authorized just over a month ago.
The WHO announced that the Novavax vaccine requires two doses, it can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures, 2 to 8 in commercial refrigerators. It is currently being analyzed for approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The emergency use approval gives these vaccines a chance to enter the Covax program, created by WHO in cooperation with other agencies to distribute low-priced and equitable doses of the anticovid vaccine around the world.
As in previous cases, a group of WHO technical advisers reviewed the quality, efficacy and safety standards of the vaccine.
The health agency stressed that Covovax “will boost efforts to vaccinate more people in low-income countries.”
“Vaccines continue to be one of the most effective methods of protection against serious forms and death caused by SARS-COV-2, despite the appearance of new variants,” said Dr. Mariangela Simao, in charge of access to medicines from The OMS.
This approval “should facilitate access to vaccines to poor countries, 41 of which have not yet been able to vaccinate 10% of their population, while 98% of countries have not yet reached 40%,” he stressed.
The WHO had set the goal of vaccinating 40% of the population of all countries before the end of the year. EFE.
Meanwhile, the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, also announced that it plans to launch a version of Covovax for children in six months, which would make this the first suitable for children under 18 years of age in this country of 1,350 million inhabitants.
Covavax “will be launched in India in six months,” said the CEO of the manufacturing company, Adar Poonawalla, during a conference of the Confederation of Indian Industries.
The drug “shows excellent data in the age group up to three years,” said the executive.
IBS is also one of the largest manufacturers of the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and the AstraZeneca laboratory, which is produced in India under the name Covishield.
Due to the institute’s large production capacity and low costs, the Indian producer offers one of the cheapest COVID-19 vaccines in the world.
This production has been a vital supply for India’s vaccination campaign, which despite having approved the emergency use of various drugs, Covishield has administered the bulk of its population.
So far the Indian government has given 1,338 million vaccines since the start of its immunization campaign last January, and more than 520 million people have already received two doses of the vaccine. Of these, more than 1,000 million were produced by the SII.
India has a vaccine-eligible adult population of about 950 million people, according to national census data.
Poonawalla considered this a significant achievement considering the supply problems, the distribution challenges among the large population and the devastating second wave that swept through the country a few months ago with more than 400,000 daily infections.
However, the demand for vaccines in this country has begun to decline in recent weeks, as the authorities begin to encounter resistance from part of the population to get vaccinated.
Faced with the appearance of new variants, and resistance in part of the population, which could facilitate the spread of the virus, the head of Serum sees booster vaccines as a strategic measure.
“One thing is for sure, (vaccine) boosters are a proven strategy that will definitely increase antibodies and give you some more protection,” the manufacturer said without referring directly to India.
India is currently evaluating the possibility of allowing a third dose of the vaccine as a booster, in an attempt to help contain the spread of the virus among its population.
A third round of the vaccine in India, for the entire adult population, would imply a demand for another hundreds of millions of doses. (I)
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