In the fight against Covid-19, another significant step has been taken by the expert panel of the country – the central drug authority. On Monday, i.e 14th February the drug regulator’s expert committee recommended emergency approval to Hyderabad based Biological E’s Corbevax for use in adolescents of 12-18 years, subject to certain conditions.
The recommendation has been sent to the DCGI for final approval.
It is worth noting that the government has still not taken a decision on vaccinating children below 15 years. NITI Aayog Member (Health) V K Paul recently in a press conference stated that the additional need for vaccination and inclusion of population for vaccination is examined constantly.
Biological E’s Corbevax will be the second vaccine after Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin to have received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for children below 18 years of age.
About Corbevax:
On 28 December last year, the DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India) approved Corbevax for restricted use in emergency situations among adults. Sharing the news on the micro-blogging site then, the Union Minister for Health Mansukh Mandaviya briefly suggested that Corbevax vaccine is India’s 1st indigenously developed RBD protein subunit vaccine Covid-19. It is the third vaccine that has the tag of ‘Made-in-India’. The other two vaccines Made in India include Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and the Serum Institute of India’s (SII) Covishield.
Some of the things to note about Corbevax:
- Corbevax Vaccine is a product developed by Hyderabad based Biological E Limited – a Biological company, in collaboration with Texas Children’s Hospital Centre for Vaccine Development and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, texas.
- The Corbevax Vaccine is created using protein subunit technology. Subunit Technology is defined by World Health Organisation as, “the one that uses the very specific parts (the subunits) of a virus or bacterium that the immune system needs to recognise. It doesn’t contain the whole microbe or uses a safe virus as a vector.”Corbevax is a “recombinant protein sub-unit” vaccine, developed from a component of the spike protein on the virus’ surface, which helps the body build the immune response against the virus.
- The vaccine has been licensed patent-free which means that other low and middle-income countries can produce and distribute this cheap, stable and relatively easy-to-scale vaccine locally.
Vaccine administered to Children:
Young India is fighting the pandemic with full vigour! Over 1.5 crore youngsters between the 15-18 age group are fully vaccinated. Over 70% of youngsters of 15-17 years of age are now covered with at least the first dose of Covaxin, indicating that a majority of eligible adolescents have initiated vaccination – a crucial intervention to protect oneself from the fight against Covid-19.
