Covaxin Gets WHO Approval for Emergency Use Listing

The WHO clearance is a significant step in Covaxin being accepted by foreign governments. It will remove uncertainty around overseas travel by Indians inoculated with this vaccine. Moreover, EUL is also a prerequisite for a vaccine to be supplied through COVAX, the global Covid vaccine equity scheme.

Covaxin is one of the six vaccines that have received emergency use authorisation from India’s drug regulator and is being used in the nationwide inoculation programme, along with Covishield and Sputnik V.

In July, Bharat Biotech had announced the safety and efficacy analysis data from Phase III clinical trials of its vaccine and stated that Covaxin demonstrated 77.8 per cent effectiveness against symptomatic Covid-19 and 65.2 per cent protection against the new Delta variant.