New Delhi : The World Health Organization (WHO) rejected Bharat Biotech’s chief Krishna Ella claim that Covaxin faced intensive scrutiny by the world health body and said that the COVID-19 vaccine was assessed on exactly the same criteria as other vaccines produced across the world.
The WHO told Economic Times that the Emergency Use Listing is “a neutral, technically rigorous and non-political process with independent regulatory experts contributing to evaluations and advising WHO”.
The world health body’s reaction came after Ella told ‘Times Now Summit 2021’ that Covaxin went through a lot of scrutinies by the WHO as compared to other approved COVID vaccines.
Bharat Biotech had submitted EOI (Expression of Interest) to the WHO on April 19, 2021 for Covaxin’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL). The WHO granted EUL to India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine on November 3.
Covaxin has demonstrated 77.8 per cent effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19.
“The efficacy analysis demonstrates Covaxin to be 77.8 per cent effective against symptomatic Covid-19, through evaluation of 130 confirmed cases, with 24 observed in the vaccine group versus 106 in the placebo group,” The Lancet said.
India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine by Bharat Biotech was developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV).
Covaxin is a 2-dose vaccination regimen given 28 days apart. It is a vaccine with no sub-zero storage and ready to use liquid presentation in multi-dose vials. It can be stored and transported between 2-8 degrees Celsius.
The WHO has earlier listed the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, two AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines, AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India, COVID-19 vaccine Ad26.COV2.S developed by Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) and China’s Sinopharm for emergency use.
