Serum Institute’s Covovax receives emergency approval from WHO; Poonawalla calls it ‘yet another milestone’
Expanding the basket of WHO-approved vaccines in the fight against the COVID-19, the World Health Organization today announced it has granted emergency approval to Serum Institute of India’s Covovax.
Reacting to this development, Adar Poonawalla, Chief Executive Officer of SII, said it is “yet another milestone in our fight against COVID-19”.
“Covovax is now W.H.O. approved for emergency use, showing excellent safety and efficacy. Thank you all for a great collaboration,” he added.
Covovax is produced by SII under licence from Novavax
Mariangela Simao, WHO’s access to vaccines chief said that even with new variants emerging, vaccines remain one of the most effective tools to protect people against serious illness and death from SARS-COV-2.
“This listing aims to increase access particularly in lower-income countries,” she added.
Covovax is produced by the SII under licence from Novavax and is part of the COVAX facility portfolio, requires two doses and is stable at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius refrigerated temperatures.
It uses a novel platform and is produced by creating an engineered baculovirus containing a gene for a modified SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.
Novovax’s own vaccine is currently under assessment by the European Medicines Agency, and it will complete its own assessment of this vaccine once the EMA has issued its recommendation, reported Reuters.
90 per cent efficacy against COVID-19
SII had started producing the protein-based vaccine in June and as per the Phase -3 trials, Covovax has shown overall 90 per cent efficacy against COVID-19.
In addition to being highly effective in preventing illness of any severity, the vaccine was 100 per cent effective in preventing moderate and severe disease that required hospitalisation, revealed the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The vaccine will be launched in the next six months with Poonawalla saying that it is currently under trial and has shown excellent results down to the age of 3 years.
