Govt panel likely to decide on Covovax booster request today

New Delhi: An expert panel of the central drugs regulatory authority is likely to take a decision on Wednesday on granting market authorisation to SII’s Covid vaccine Covovax as a heterologous booster dose for adults who have been administered two doses of Covishield or Covaxin, official sources said.

The Subject Expert Committee of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) is scheduled to meet on January 11.

Prakash Kumar Singh, Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs at the Serum Institute of India (SII), had written a letter to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) recently for the approval of Covovax as a heterologous booster dose for adults in view of the escalating pandemic situation in some countries, an official source told.

The DCGI had approved Covovax for restricted use in emergency situations for adults on December 28, 2021, for those in the 12-17 age group on March 9, 2022, and also in children aged 7- 11 years on June 28, 2022, subject to certain conditions.

Covovax is manufactured by the SII through technology transfer from Novavax. It has been approved by the European Medicines Agency for conditional marketing authorisation.

It was granted an emergency-use listing by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on December 17, 2021.

Meanwhile, India logged 121 fresh coronavirus infections on Tuesday and the number of active cases came down to 2,319, according to Union Health ministry data.

The total number of infections now stands at 4.46 crore (4,46,80,215).

The death toll increased to 5,30,722 with one death reported from Delhi in the last 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.07 per cent while the weekly positivity rate stood at 0.11 per cent.

The active cases comprise 0.01 per cent of the total infections. The national Covid recovery rate has increased to 98.80 per cent, according to the Health ministry website.