COVAXIN now meets WHO safety profile – Soumya Swaminathan

The desi vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech got a huge boost when the Chief Scientist at WHO said that the Indian COVID Vaccine COVAXIN meets the safety profile of the International Health Organisation.

This also silences the critics and instill great promise for Hyderabad-based vaccine Dr. Krishna Ella’s Bharat Biotech, to get nod for listing in World Health Organization (WHO) approved COVID vaccine. The company recently announced its Phase 3 trials conclusion demonstrating strong efficacy and protection against variants.

Soumya Swaminathan, the chief scientist at WHO told a Mumbai-based news organisation that the final phase trial data for Covaxin “looks good” and meets the safety profile of the international public health agency so far.

The pre-submission meeting between Bharat Biotech and WHO was held on June 23, Swaminathan told CNBC TV-18 in an interview, adding that the data packet is currently being assembled. She noted that although Covaxin’s efficacy against the Delta variant of Covid-19 is a bit low, it is still not bad, while the overall efficacy is “quite high.”

Bharat Biotech finally made public its findings from the Phase-3 efficacy analysis of Covaxin last Saturday, where it claimed an overall efficacy of 77.8% against symptomatic Covid-19 patients.

The pre-print data from “India’s largest efficacy trial” showed that Covaxin demonstrates 93.4% effectiveness against severe symptomatic Covid-19 cases. On the other hand, Covaxin provides 65.2% protection against the B.1.617.2 (Delta) strain, currently the most predominant Covid-19 variant in India, it said

Recently WHO chief said The world is at a perilous point in the #COVID19 pandemic. We have just passed the tragic milestone of 4 million recorded deaths, which likely underestimates the overall toll. It didn’t have to be this way and it doesn’t have to be this way going forward. #VaccinEquity