Covaxin will soon get EUL from WHO: Govt

WHO’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL) assesses the quality, safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines and is a prerequisite for COVAX Facility vaccine supply. It also allows countries to expedite their own regulatory approval to import and administer Covid-19 vaccines.

New Delhi: The Central government is hopeful that Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech will soon get the Emergency Use Listing (EUL) from the World Health Organisation for Covaxin.

“We are constantly working with Bharat Biotech and the World Health Organisation. Data sharing process is going on and we believe it will happen soon,” said Dr VK Paul, chairman of National Task Force on Covid19 and a member of Niti Aayog.

WHO’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL) assesses the quality, safety and efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines and is a prerequisite for COVAX Facility vaccine supply. It also allows countries to expedite their own regulatory approval to import and administer Covid-19 vaccines.

Covaxin has already received regulatory approval from 11 countries, whereas 11 companies from seven other nations have also expressed their interest for technology transfer and production of Covaxin.

Dr Paul was talking to the reporters during a press conference in New Delhi. He said that the government has approved a clinical-guidelines for the treatment of young children, if they are infected with Covid19.

Regarding vaccination of young children, Dr Paul said that vaccine makers in India are conducting trials on the matter. “However, the young children, which consists of a 13-14 crore population, need a huge stock of vaccine, about 26 crore. We need to first ensure the availability and at the same time we need to analyze data and science before vaccinating children,” said Dr Paul while referring to the availability of foreign vaccines too including Pfizer.

Talking on the issue of indemnity as demanded by Pfizer, Dr Paul said that the government is still discussing the matter. “When we are discussing whether indemnity can be given to foreign vaccine manufacturers, certainly giving indemnity to local vaccine manufacturers has also come up,” Dr Paul said.

It may be mentioned here that Pfizer has asked for indemnity from liability in case of any eventuality from the government. The company said that 5 crore vaccines are available to get it distributed in India.

Referring to the procurement of Covid19 vaccines from Hyderabad based manufacturer Biological-E, Dr Paul said that the company will have the capacity to produce 75 million doses per month. “This will definitely give a major push to India’s vaccines stock as we aim to inoculate all our citizens by December,” said Dr Paul.

The Union Ministry of Health has finalised arrangements with Biological-E to reserve 30 crore of Covid-19 vaccine doses. These vaccine doses will be manufactured and stockpiled by M/s Biological-E from August-December 2021. For this purpose, the Union Ministry of Health would be making an advance payment of Rs 1500 crore to M/s Biological-E.

Dr Paul emphasized that vaccinating the elderly people is still the priority of the government as only 43 percent of people above 60 years of age have been vaccinated.

States like Tripura, Rajasthan have been witnessing more than 80 percent vaccination to this particular age group of people whereas many states like Telangana are lagging behind.

“India at present is witnessing an improvement in Covid19 cases. However, we need to maintain the alertness and vaccinate all,” he said.

He said that India tops the list of countries as far as vaccinating people with at least one dose of Covid19 vaccine is concerned.

“India has vaccinated 17.2 crore people with one dose, whereas the US has vaccinated 16.9 crore and UK 3.95 crore and so on,” Dr Paul added.

With a number of 245 deaths per million population, India is also doing better in comparison to other foreign countries. The global average of deaths due to Covid19 is 477 and countries like Brazil witnessed 2100 and US 1838 deaths.

Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the health ministry, echoed that India’s Covid19 scenario is improving with many states witnessing decreasing positivity rate as well as maximum recovery rate.

As many as 22.41 crore doses of Covid19 vaccines have been given till date.

“There is a continuous decrease in cases since India reported a peak in cases on May 7. Less than 2 lakh daily cases since May 28 and almost 68 percent decline in cases since the highest reported peak on May 7,” he said.

Between April 29 and May 5, more than 538 districts were reporting more than 100 daily new cases and it has come down to 257 districts from May 27 to June 2.

“The country has also witnessed a decrease in active cases by more than 21 lakhs since the peak on May 10 (decline by 56 percent),” said Agarwal.

There are 74,707 more recoveries vis a vis new-cases in the last 24 hours. As many as 32 States have recorded more recoveries than reported daily cases in the last 24 hours.

“The daily positivity rate is below 10 percent from the past 7 days. Positivity rate in the last 24 hours- 6.38 percent,” Agarwal said.

He said that 377 districts across India have been reporting less than 5 percent case positivity presently.

When asked about high rates being charged by private hospitals, Agarwal said that the concerned state governments have power to take action against such happenings.