WHO’s approval for Covaxin likely this month

Covaxin is one of the six vaccines that have received emergency use authorisation from India’s drug regulator

A medical staff member shows Covaxin which might be approved by WHO this month.

The World Health Organization’s approval for the indigenous COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin, developed by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, is likely to come this month, official sources said on Monday.

The WHO has so far approved COVID vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, U.S. pharma majors Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, China’s Sinopharm and Oxford-AstraZeneca for emergency use.

Covaxin is one of the six vaccines that have received emergency use authorisation from India’s drug regulator and is being used in the nationwide inoculation programme, alongwith Covishield and Sputnik V.

“The WHO approval for Covaxin is likely this month,” an official source said.

The Centre had told Rajya Sabha in July that all documents required for the WHO’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL) have been submitted by Bharat Biotech as of July 9, and the global health body had commenced the review process.