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According to sources, Zydus Cadila’s needle-free coronavirus vaccine ZyCoV-D is likely to be launched in early October. This is most likely to happen in the first week of the month.
The government had earlier said that a decision has not been taken on whether the COVID-19 vaccine will be given to all children or only those with co-morbidities on a priority basis.
Indigenously developed Zydus Cadila’s ZyCoV-D received approval for emergency use authorization from the drug regulator two weeks ago, making it the first vaccine in the country to be administered in the age group of 12-18 years.
As for the kind of talks in terms of pricing and when the government is planning to procure ZyCoV-D, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, “For talks, media reports as well as our own associations with the vaccine manufacturing company What we have understood from this is that they will be in a position to provide this vaccine from the first week of October.”
“So we are in talks with them and as soon as we clarify the terms and conditions of the purchase, we will share it with you,” he told a news conference.
When asked whether children with comorbidities would be given priority for vaccination, Bhushan said whether all children should be given priority or children with comorbidities should be taken, an issue on which NTAGI’s COVID The Standing Committee on-19 makes a recommendation.
“The recommendation has not been made yet and once it is done, the NTAGI takes a decision on it and recommends it to the government and then the process ends and a decision is taken,” he said.
The Covisheeld, Covaxin and Sputnik V vaccines are only given to people over the age of 18 and are administered in two doses, unlike ZyCoV-D, which is a three-dose.
The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has said that ZyCoV-D is the world’s first DNA-based vaccine against coronavirus and when injected produces the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and elicits an immune response. , which plays an important role. Protection from disease as well as in viral clearance.
It said interim results of Phase III clinical trials in over 28,000 volunteers showed a primary efficacy of 66.6 per cent for symptomatic RT-PCR positive cases.
DBT said that this is the largest ever vaccine trial in India for COVID-19.
The vaccine had already demonstrated strong immunogenicity and tolerability and safety profile in adaptive phase one and two clinical trials.
It added that the phase one/two and phase three clinical trials have been supervised by an independent data security monitoring board.
(With inputs from PTI)
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