By Krishna N. Das and Anuron Kumar Mitra
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India said on Tuesday that it had no concerns about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, despite South Africa putting it on hold, and asked for an additional 10 million doses of the vaccine for its own huge immunization campaign.
South Africa postponed the use of the vaccine after researchers found that it offered minimal protection against mild to moderate COVID-19 disease caused by the country’s dominant coronavirus variant.
India, with the highest number of infections after the United States, has yet to detect the South African variant and will continue to use the vaccine in an inoculation campaign that has covered 6.3 million frontline workers since 16 January.
“Our vaccination program is robust and valid, and I guarantee that we will go ahead with it, we are not concerned at the moment,” Vinod Kumar Paul, a leading Indian vaccine official, told a news conference.
“We will intensify our vigilance and we will follow other developments in due course.”
The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has licensed the vaccine from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford and markets it as COVISHIELD for low and middle income countries.
India ordered an additional 10 million doses of COVISHIELD over the 11 million previously provided, an SII spokesman told Reuters on Tuesday. The SII has agreed to sell at least 100 million doses to the government at a discounted price of 200 rupees ($ 2.74) each, although the government says firm orders will be staggered based on your needs and also on time. validity of the vaccine.
COVISHIELD is about 72% effective, based on final stage tests carried out abroad, says the Indian drug regulator.
The country is also using the COVAXIN injection developed at home by Bharat Biotech with the Indian Medical Research Council, administered by the state. Bharat Biotech has supplied 5.5 million doses to the government and is selling an additional 4.5 million, a company spokesman told Reuters.
The government wants to cover 300 million people by August, reaching the elderly and those with existing conditions by March.
India recorded 10.85 million infections and more than 155,000 deaths – although cases have dropped dramatically since September.
DOING IN INDIA
Paul said Johnson & Johnson could manufacture its lead in India. He also said that many other vaccines, including Russia’s Sputnik V, Cadila Healthcare’s ZyCov-D and a Novavax product, were in the queue.
“India is fortunate to have two great vaccines made in India, and up to 6-7 vaccines in the pipeline and perhaps more,” he said, days after Pfizer Inc withdrew an application for emergency use authorization in the country.
The American company immediately refused to do a small local safety study for its injection and produce it in India, unlike other vaccine developers.
Meanwhile, New Delhi is aggressively promoting SII and Bharat Biotech vaccines abroad as part of a diplomatic campaign to regain the lost ground for China.
Bharat Biotech told Reuters it could export its vaccine to Brazil and the United Arab Emirates this week, a major success for the vaccine approved at home for emergency use without data on the effectiveness of a final stage test.
The company expects results from an ongoing trial involving 25,800 participants in India only until March, although the country’s drug regulator has found the vaccine safe and effective amid criticism from doctors and health experts. A study of 26 participants found that COVAXIN is effective against the British coronavirus strain.
Bharat Biotech has also applied to conduct a Phase III trial for COVAXIN in Brazil, which plans to import 8 million doses in February and another 12 million in March.
Bharat Biotech has also sought authorization for emergency use in the Philippines.
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi and Anuron Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru; Edited by Christian Schmollinger, Louise Heavens and Giles Elgood)