Covovax in India: Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Saturday confirmed that the clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccine Covovax have begun in India.
The company assured that after the approval it is hoping to launch the vaccine by September this year. This coronavirus vaccine has been developed in partnership with American vaccine developer Novavax.
"Covovax trials finally begin in India; the vaccine is made through a partnership with @Novavax and @SerumInstIndi. It has been tested against African and UK variants of #COVID19 and has overall efficacy of 89%. Hope to launch by September 2021 (sic)!", Poonawalla wrote in a tweet.
Covovax in India: Covovax is 89.3 per cent effective
Poonawalla, who had hoped to launch Covovax by June, said that SII's phase 2 and 3 study have begun with 1,600 participants at one of the trial sites in Pune. He further mentioned that the COVID-19 jab found to be 89.3 per cent effective in a UK trial. The company said they will continue with the trials since it has been tested against African and UK variants. “The trials have started at a hospital in Pune on Thursday. More will start enrolling soon," one of the sources said.
After Covishield, Pune-based SII is expecting to get a clearance on its second coronavirus vaccine - Covovax -- for which trials have started in the country after the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) cleared the application. Alongside this, Hyderabad-based pharma firm Bharat Biotech's Covaxin also got the nod in India.
In India, senior citizens above 60 and those above 45 years of age with co-morbidities are eligible to register and receive the jab currently. The nationwide immunisation drive started on March 1. The first phase started in mid-January with healthcare workers. From April 1, all people above 45 can get themselves vaccinated.
Earlier this year, Poonawalla had said that his company would manufacture "upwards of 40-50 million doses per month" of the Novavax vaccine from around April and the efficacy of the vaccine was calculated at 95.6 per cent against the original coronavirus strain and 85.6 per cent against the UK variant.
India has witnessed the vaccination drive on more than 26 lakh people in the last 24 hours.
India faces a new challenge with an alarming spike in fresh cases reported over the last two weeks. The Health Ministry data on Saturday showed a spike of 62,258 infections in the last 24 hours taking the country's tally to 1.19 crore cases.
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