New Delhi: The expert panel of the national drugs regulator will meet on Friday (January 1, 2021) to decide on issuing an approval on the emergency-use authorisation for Serum Institute of India’s (SII) Oxford-AstraZeneca and Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccines.
On Wednesday, the subject expert committee (SEC) had met to review their EUA application. While in the meeting, SEC reviewed the documents and found the data lacking and recommended some additional data from Bharat Biotech.
The Central government has asked all States and UTs to ensure effective preparedness for the COVID-19 vaccine rollout from Saturday (January 2) across the country.
The dry run will be conducted by all the State and UT governments on 2nd January 2021 (Saturday). The activity is proposed to be conducted in all State Capitals in at least 3 session sites; some States will also include districts that are situated in difficult terrain/have poor logistical support; Maharashtra and Kerala are likely to schedule the dry run in major cities other than their Capital.
The objective of the dry run for COVID-19 vaccine introduction is to assess operational feasibility in the use of Co-WIN application in the field environment, to test the linkages between planning and implementation and to identify the challenges and guide way forward prior to actual implementation. This is also expected to give confidence to programme managers at various levels.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Thursday chaired a high-level meeting to review the preparedness at session sites for COVID-19 vaccination with Principal Secretaries (Health), NHM MDs and other health administrators of all States/UTs through video conference.
As many as three companies have applied for EUA for their COVID-19 vaccine candidates. The companies are Pfizer, SII and Bharat Biotech. While Pfizer did not show up for the presentation on the earlier dates and sought more time, the expert panel reviewed the data of the other two companies and asked for more details.
SII has partnered with the company to conduct clinical trials and manufacture the vaccine in India.
