Covid-19: India allows export of 20m Novavax doses to Indonesia
New Delhi: In the middle of rising coronavirus cases in several countries, India has increased its speed of covid-19 vaccine export to the world. According to the sources, India has approved the export of 20 million doses of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India (SII) to Indonesia.
According to the media report, the shot, which SII calls Covovax, has an emergency-use authorization in Indonesia but not in India. Last month SII said that it could produce up to 100 million Covovax doses by December.
Sources further added that the government has also decided to allow the export of 10 million doses of a licensed version of the AstraZeneca shot made by SII, branded Covishield, to the global vaccine-sharing program Covax.
Shipments will start next month, one of the sources said, for the first time since April.
One of the sources said the government first wanted to make sure it had enough doses to fully inoculate nearly all of India’s 944 million adults, likely by January. The tentative target is to have some 1.7 billion doses in total. India has so far given at least one dose to 81 percent of its adults and two doses to 41 percent.
Indian regulators are currently studying data on the drug, which will be made by domestic companies such as Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Aurobindo Pharma, Cipla, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, Sun Pharmaceuticals, and Torrent Pharmaceuticals. The companies will directly market the products to hospitals and others, the source said.
(Vinayak)
