New Delhi: The 10-member Subject Expert Committee of India's Central Drug Standard Control Organisation on Friday approved emergency use authorisation of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine 'Covishield'.
The expert panel had convened a meeting to take a call on the emergency use authorisation sought by the Serum Institute of India, the manufacturer of Covishield, and Bharat Biotech for its Covaxin.
Once the vaccines are cleared by the committee, the application will be sent to Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) V.G. Somani for final approval.
'Covishield' become the first vaccine to secure recommendation for emergency use in India. Britain and Argentina have already authorised Covishield for urgent public use.
More than 50 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine have already been stockpiled by its local manufacturer, Serum Institute of India (SII), and one of the sources said the shots could start to be transported from cold storage to different states as early as Saturday.
Government said on Wednesday that Pfizer Inc had sought more time to present data for emergency authorisation of a vaccine it has developed with Germany's BioNTech.
No approval for Covaxin
The expert panel also held that the data provided by Bharat Biotech for its coronavirus vaccine 'Covaxin' is not sufficient for grant of emergency use approval and has asked for more information, top sources said.
Bharat Biotech has collaborated with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for 'Covaxin'.
The committee had convened a meeting to take a call on the emergency use authorisation sought by the Serum Institute, Bharat Biotech and America's Pfizer for their coronavirus vaccines candidates.
Pfizer was the first one to apply for the accelerated approval on December 4, followed by the Serum Insstitute and Bharat Biotech on December 6 and 7, respectively.
The meeting comes a day before dry run of the vaccine is slated to commence in all the states and Union Territories to equip the administration in management of vaccine supply, storage and logistics including cold chain management.
The Central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore people in the first phase of drive. It will be offered to one crore healthcare workers, along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 years with co-morbidities.
