In the fight against Covid-19, the Central government has decided to expand Covid vaccination for the 12-14 year age groups from 16th March 2022, Wednesday. In addition to this, people above the age of 60 will be able to take precaution shots or booster shots as well, Union Minister for Health, Mansukh Mandaviya mentioned in a tweet.
According to the official release of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Covid-19 vaccine to be administered would be Corbevax which is manufactured by Biological E. Limited, Hyderabad.
The government has also decided that the condition of co-morbidity for Covid-19 Precaution Dose for population over 60 years of age will be removed forthwith. Hence, from 16th March 2022 onwards, the entire population above 60 years of age will be eligible for the Precaution Dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
It is important to highlight that government has already rolled out a vaccination drive against Covid-19 for the population above 14 under the ongoing Covid-19 vaccination programme. India commenced vaccinating the 15-18 year age population from 3 January 2022. Until now, children were administered Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin shots. According to the data by the Union Ministry of Health, as of 14th March 2022, 5,58,92,605 children between the age group 15-18 have received 1st dose and 3,38,83,880 have received the second dose.
In recent news, Biological E. Limited had applied for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for its Covid-19 candidate Corbevax for the children of age group 5-12 years.
About Corbevax:
India’s Drug Regulator on 21st February 2022, gave Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) to Biological E Ltd’s COVID-19 vaccine, Corbevax for use in children aged 12 to 18 years based on the interim results of the ongoing phase-2 and 3 clinical study
With the Drug Controller General of India’s approval, Corbevax became the third coronavirus vaccine to be approved for children in India apart from Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D.
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 recognize. 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 was earlier approved by the DCGI in December 2019 for restricted use emergency situation among adults.
