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Covovax for Adults by October, for Children Early Next Year: SII

Covovax for Adults by October, for Children Early Next Year: SII

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NEW DELHI, Aug 6: While India recorded 44,643 new Corona cases and 464 deaths in the last 24 hours on Friday, marginally higher than the previous day, the Serum Institute of India CEO Adar Poonawalla said he was hopeful that Covovax, another Covid-19 vaccine being manufactured by his company in India, would be launched in October for adults and for children by the first quarter of 2022.

According to the Union Health Ministry’s latest data, the country’s overall caseload has risen to over 3.18 crore (3,18,56,763), while the death toll increased to 4,26,754.

With 41,096 coronavirus patients recovering from the infection, active cases now stand at 4,14,159. With 22,040 new cases, Kerala contributed the largest number of cases to the country’s daily Covid tally. Maharashtra had 9,026, which included about 2,200 previously uncounted cases updated through a data reconciliation exercise.

Active cases presently constitute 1.30 per cent of total cases, while the recovery rate is now at 97.36 per cent. The weekly positivity rate remains below 5 per cent, and currently stands at 2.41 per cent. Meanwhile, the daily positivity rate (2.72 per cent) stayed below 3 per cent for the 11th consecutive day.

Of the 464 deaths reported today, Maharashtra contributed 123 while Kerala had 117.

As many as 16,40,287 tests were conducted on Thursday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection in the country to 47,65,33,650.

Poonawalla thanked the government for all the support provided to Serum Institute and said the company was always trying to expand its Covishield production capacity to meet the demand.

Poonawalla met Home Minister Amit Shah in Parliament and the meeting between the two lasted for 30 minutes.

“The government is helping us and we are facing no financial crunch. We are thankful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for all the cooperation and support,” Poonawala said after his meeting.

When asked about vaccines for kids, he said, “The Covovax vaccine for kids will be launched in the first quarter of the next year most likely in January-February.”

Poonawala said he was hopeful that for adults Covovax would be launched in October, depending on DCGI approvals. It would be a two-dose vaccine and the price would be decided at the time of launch, he added.

On production capacity of Covishield, the vaccine being manufactured and supplied by Serum in India under a licensing agreement with Oxford and AstraZeneca, he said the present capacity is 130 million doses per month and always try to increase it further.

Earlier in the day, Poonawalla also met Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

The minister tweeted that he had a productive discussion on the supply of the Covishield vaccine with Poonawalla. “I appreciated their role in mitigating #COVID19 & assured continued Government support in ramping up vaccine production,” Mandaviya said.

Last month, an expert panel of India’s Central Drug Authority recommended granting permission to Serum Institute of India (SII) for conducting phase 2/3 trials of Covovax on children aged 2 to 17 years with certain conditions, official sources had earlier said.

The trials would cover 920 children, 460 each in the age group of 12-17 and 2-11 across 10 sites.

The Pune-based pharmaceutical company had submitted a revised protocol for inclusion of pediatric cohort in the ongoing Covovax phase 2 and 3 observer-blind, randomised, controlled study in Indian adults aged 18 years and above to determine the safety and immunogenicity of the jab.

(Manas Dasgupta)

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