COVID-19 vaccines: From status to approvals, all your questions answered

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As India tries to curb the second wave of the pandemic, which has already overburdened the health infrastructure and battered the economy, there is a need to add more vaccines to the basket for domestic use.

The Centre on April 13 decided to fast track emergency approvals for foreign-produced COVID-19 vaccines that have been granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in other countries. The move will expand the basket of vaccines for domestic use.

Presently, three vaccines have received emergency approvals from the national regulator Drugs Controller General of India– Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Russia’s Sputnik V.

Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd (DRL) had applied for the grant of permission to import and market Gam-COVID-Vac combined vector vaccine, popularly called Sputnik-V, developed by M/s Gamaleya Institute, Russia for Emergency Use Authorization, the health ministry said.

Let’s take a look at other vaccine candidates that India can consider to expand the basket of jabs for domestic use:

-ZyCoV-D: Developed by Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila, the ZyCov-D vaccine is being made on the DNA platform. India’s drug regulator has given its approval to the drug manufacturer to initiate Phase III clinical trials of its vaccine.

-NVX-Cov2373: This vaccine candidate is being developed by SII in collaboration with America’s NovaVax. Trials for the vaccine are underway. The vaccine has been tested against the African and UK variants, SII CEO Adar Poonawalla had said. In January 2021, Poonawalla had said SII expected to launch Covovax by June 2021.

-HGCO19: The mRNA-based vaccine is has been developed by Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals in collaboration with US’ HDT Biotech Corporation. The company has initiated the process to enroll healthy volunteers for the phase I and II clinical trials.

mRNA-1273: US-based Moderna has started vaccine trials for children aged from 6 months to under 12 years old. The vaccine has already been authorized for emergency use in Americans who are aged 18 and older.

– Janssen: Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen uses similar technology as AstraZeneca and Russia’s Sputnik vaccine. It is considered highly effective, even against the new coronavirus variants.