Indian Drugs regulator DCGI gave approvals to two vaccines developed by India namely Covidshield which is developed by Serum Institute of India partnering with Astrazeneca and Covaxin which is developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).
Approval were given on the recommendation of Covid-19 Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCI).
Both the approvals are restricted for emergency use and are currently dispensing for massive inoculation drive, DCGI General Dr VG Somani told in a press conference.
Prime Minister called these approvals a ‘Turning Point’ in the fight against coronavirus. He also said after successful inoculation every Indian will be proud as both Covidshield and Covaxin are Made in India and it will also show how eager our scientific community is to fulfill the idea of Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
Regional Director WHO of south east Asia region, Dr Poonam Khetrapal told that WHO welcomes the move of emergency authorization and also said that this with all other public health measures will intensify the reducing impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The DCGI also granted permission to Cadila Healthcare for performing its phase 3 clinical trials for its vaccine in India, Somani told to PTI.
After the approvals the country went under Dry run of vaccination from 2nd January 2021.
The Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech were told to keep enough doses ready to be transported to over 30 vaccination hubs.
According to the reports in the first tranche around 70 lakh public and private health professionals will be vaccinated over a period of 3 months.
In the next tranche vaccines will be given to frontline workers and then to the people aged 50 or above.
Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that the government is expecting to target around 30 crore people in the first phase.
The Dry runs are being conducted on selected places in each state and for this around 96,000 vaccinators have been trained, the health ministry said of which 2,360 participants have been trained in national training of trainers and over 57,000 with district level training in 719 districts.
After the first dry run the country will go under its second dry run to find out the best possible way to vaccinate people and to check the functionality of Cowin application in the field.
