It has been approved by the European Medicines Agency for conditional marketing authorisation.
The DCGI's approval came following recommendation by the Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation.
Paul noted that "three to four months from now, there will be other vaccines and the stockpile will be even bigger. "And more acceleration can be brought about in the vaccination programme," Paul added.
SII said it will address the limited capacity by scaling up the vaccine production over the next two months.
While Covishield supplies would meet the target of 500 mn doses between August and December, it looks like Covaxin would miss the target of 400 mn unless the partner sites of Bharat Biotech ramp up very rapidly, reports Sohini Das.
Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech have also stopped producing the Covishield and Covaxin vaccines respectively.
When a person gets an infection even after being vaccinated against it, it is called a breakthrough case.
Sources indicated that there were no fresh orders from the Government of India, and their supply commitments have ended as of March 31, reports Sohini Das.
The fact sheet also asked people to inform the vaccinator or a supervising official about their medical condition before taking the vaccine.
'We are trying to salvage 50-100 million doses of Covishield with the latest drive on booster doses.'
Activist Raman Sharma had filed a query under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, seeking to know from the government the number of people who had received the first dose of vaccines -- Covishield and Covaxin -- but did not take the second within the stipulated time period.
'Seek medical help if after five days of the first symptom the fever has not subsided.'
"There is no sufficient supply of vaccine vials by the Centre for inoculation of above-45 age group people. Hence, the state cabinet decided to divert the stock, purchased for the 18-44 age group, for the above-45 age group," Health Minister Rajesh Tope said.
BE's Corbevax is the first such vaccine in India to be approved as a heterologous COVID-19 booster in the country.
According to CoWIN data, only 73 vaccination centres are currently active in India, of which 32 are government-run.
As India holds its breath for the Covid vaccination to be begin, Sudhir Bisht provides a quick checklist of what you must know about the vaccines that will be administered to citizens.
The Centre on Tuesday placed orders for 44 crore doses of Covishield and Covaxin, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the Centre would take over the state procurement quota and provide free jabs to state governments for inoculation of all above the age of 18.
'Someone may have diabetes, but at what level the disease qualifies as a comorbid condition is something a doctor will decide upon and certify accordingly.'
Several states and UTs including Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana have decided to opt for global tenders for procurement of anti-coronavirus shots with the domestic supply falling short to meet the rising demand.
"First dose (of Covishield) and then, after 12 weeks, the second dose. There is absolutely no change. Covaxin also has a two-dose schedule. First dose and then second dose after 4-6 weeks. This schedule is being followed to take our vaccination schedule forward and no confusion must be created on this," he said.
The vaccine would not have production scalability issues unlike Covaxin, Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 virus vaccine.
Cautioning that the country is passing through a phase when there are festivals and potential gatherings, he said this is a critical phase as the virus can spread again.
"Provide enough infrastructure and money to carry out surveillance and set up a robust routine surveillance machinery for the country to monitor any and every infectious disease'
The Centre has shared a set of parameters with all states and UTs to enable service providers and monitoring teams under the national COVID-19 vaccination programme to identify any fake COVID-19 vaccines so that they are not administered in the country.
Experts, however, feel that given the intensity of the second wave and the high single dose coverage, India is in a good position to avoid any drastic wave in the near future.
So far, 1.1 crore doses of Covaxin have been administered. Out of which 93 lakh received the first dose and out of that 4,208 (0.04 per cent) people got the infection which is four per 10,000 individuals. About 17,37,178 people received the second dose of which only 695 (0.04 per cent) tested positive for COVID-19, Bhargava said.
The Union health ministry said in a statement on Monday that over 23,000 adverse events have been reported since the vaccination drive involving Covishield and Covaxin vaccines started in the country and of these 700 cases were reported to be serious.
The Centre's vaccination scheme has created two classes of citizens in India -- those who got Covaxin, whose movements are restricted, and those who received Covishield and can go anywhere -- the Kerala high court said on Tuesday.
Laws governing compensation in case of adverse side effects for Covaxin and Covishield may differ in accordance with the kind of approvals given, say legal experts.
Delhi's stock of Covishield vaccine for the 18-44 age group will last less than a day and the city government will have to shut more than 150 vaccination centres on Friday, Aam Aadmi Party MLA Atishi said on Thursday.
As of now, Gennova Biopharmaceuticals has launched a vaccine, Gemcovac-OM, which is based on the Omicron variant.
Dominic Xavier ponders the Vaccine Dilemma: Should he take the shot or not?
Dominic Xavier salutes every single person involved in making this miracle possible.
The approval by the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) was given on the basis of recommendations submitted by a COVID-19 subject expert committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
A massive pan-India inoculation drive against COVID-19 was set in process on Tuesday with more than 56 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine flown to 13 cities across India from Pune and taken to designated national and state-level stores amid tight security.
The technical advisory group will now meet on November 3 for a final assessment.
Apart from the 1.1 crore doses of Covishield being procured from the Serum Institute of India, 55 lakh doses of indigenously developed Covaxin were being obtained from Bharat Biotech, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said at a press conference.
Replying to a question at a press conference in New Delhi, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said, "At many places in the world, more than one vaccine are being administered, but presently, in no country, vaccine recipients have the option of choosing the shots."
'Your body will be able to deal with Omicron at any time, but it depends (on when) if you are vaccinated.'
The Hyderabad-based firm completed clinical trials of the nasal vaccine with about 4,000 volunteers and there is no side effect or adverse reaction reported so far, company sources had said.
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