WHO suspends UN supply of Covaxin
Hyderabad: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has confirmed it has suspended the supply of Covaxin, produced by city-based Bharat Biotech, through UN procurement agencies and recommending to countries that received the Covid vaccine to take actions as appropriate.
A statement issued by WHO on Saturday said the suspension is in response to the outcomes of its post EUL (emergency use authorisation) inspection held between March 14 and 22, 2022 and the need to conduct process and facility upgrade to address recently identified GMP (good manufacturing practice) deficiencies.
There will be interruption of supply of Covaxin due to suspension of production for export, WHO said. The risk assessment to date does not indicate change in the risk-benefit ratio. The data, available to WHO, indicate the vaccine is effective and no safety concern exists, WHO said.
Bharat Biotech on April 1 announced the temporary slowing down of production of its Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin across its manufacturing facilities, having completed its supply obligations to procurement agencies and foreseeing the decrease in demand.
During the recent WHO inspection, Bharat Biotech agreed with the former's team on the scope of the planned improvement activities and indicated that they will be executed as soon as possible.
The company has committed to comply by addressing the GMP deficiencies and is developing a corrective and preventive action plan, for submission to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) and WHO. In the interim and as a precautionary measure, the company has indicated its commitment to suspend its production of Covaxin for export, WHO said.
Meanwhile, with 1,096 new Coronavirus infections being reported in a day, India's total tally of Covid cases rose to 4,30,28,131, while the active cases dipped to 13,013, according to the Union Health ministry data updated on Sunday.
The death toll climbed to 5,21,345 with 81 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.
The active cases comprise 0.03 per cent of the total infections, while the national Covid recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent, the ministry said.
A reduction of 432 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
India's Covid tally had surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19, 2020. The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23 last year.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.24 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 0.23 per cent, according to the Health ministry.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,24,93,773, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.21 per cent.
Earlier, a new strain of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, first detected in the UK, appears to be more transmissible than previous strains of the Coronavirus, the WHO has said, asserting that Covid-19 remains a public health emergency of international concern and warning that it is "too early" to reduce the quality of surveillance.
The World Health Organisation said in its latest update that the XE recombinant (BA.1-BA.2) was first detected in the UK on January 19 and more than 600 sequences have been reported and confirmed since then. "Early-day estimates indicate a community growth rate advantage of 10% as compared to BA.2. However, this finding requires further confirmation," it said.
The Geneva-based UN health agency said that XE belongs to the Omicron variant until significant differences in transmission and disease characteristics, including severity, may be reported. "WHO continues to closely monitor and assess the public health risk associated with recombinant variants, alongside other SARS-CoV-2 variants, and will provide updates as further evidence becomes available," it said.
The prevalence of the virus in the UK has reached record levels, with about 1 in 13 people estimated to be infected with the virus in the past week.
