Approvals for foreign Covid vax on fast track

New Delhi: The Union government on Tuesday said it is speeding up emergency approvals for foreign-made vaccines that have been granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) in other countries amid alarming spike of coronavirus infections across India.

This is being done to expand the basket of vaccines for domestic use and hasten the pace and coverage of vaccination, according to an official statement from the government.

India, now the second most affected nation by Covid-19, on Tuesday recorded a massive surge of 161,736 Covid-19 cases.

With this, India's Covid tally has shot up to 13,689,453 cases, according to Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data.

The country also witnessed 880 fatalities due to Covid-19 in a single day. The death toll from the deadly infection stands at 171,089.

Presently three vaccines --- Covaxin by Bharat Biotech and Covishield by Serum Institute of India (SII) and Sputnik by Dr Reddy's --- have received emergency approvals from the national regulator Drugs Controller General of India. The DCGI has granted permission for Sputnik on Tuesday.

The matter of augmenting the basket of vaccines available for fighting the pandemic as well as to accelerate the pace and coverage of domestic vaccination programme was discussed in the 23rd meeting of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 (NEGVAC) held on April 11, chaired by Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), Niti Aayog.

NEGVAC, after comprehensive deliberation, recommended that vaccines for Covid-19, which have been developed and are being manufactured in foreign countries and which have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by USFDA, EMA, UK MHRA, PMDA Japan or which are listed in WHO (Emergency Use Listing) may be granted emergency use approval in India, mandating the requirement of post-approval parallel bridging clinical trial in place of conduct of local clinical trial.