India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin from Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech has been taken off the clinical trial mode and is now authorised for emergency use on a par with Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield, NITI Aayog’s member (health) V.K. Paul said on Thursday.
While congratulating the scientific community on the achievement, Dr. Paul cautioned that the COVID pandemic isn’t over and that people should not lower their guard.
Most in Maharashtra
“The surge in COVID cases in Maharashtra is a serious matter. This surge has two lessons — don’t take the virus for granted and if we have to remain COVID free, then we need to follow COVID appropriate behaviour and avail ourselves of the vaccines,” Dr. Paul said addressing a Health Ministry press conference.
Speaking about Maharashtra, Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research Balram Bhargava said the State had shown a worrisome trend and added that the mutant strain had not been found to be responsible for the surge in cases.
“This is related to reduced testing, tracking, inappropriate COVID behavior and large congregations,” Dr. Bhargava said.
Eight of the top 10 districts in terms of active COVID cases are in Maharashtra. Health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said Pune with 18,474 cases topped the list, followed by Nagpur (12,724), Thane (10,460), Mumbai (9,973), Bengaluru Urban (5,526), Ernakulam (5,430), Amravati (MH) (5,259), Jalgaon (5,029), Nashik (4,525) and Aurangabad (4,354).
Mr. Bhushan said the government “has also re-negotiated the price of the COVID-19 vaccine being bought from the Serum Institute of India (SII).
“The price of Covishield, developed by AstraZeneca and the Oxford University and manufactured by SII has been reduced from ₹200 per dose (without tax) to substantially lower,” he said. However, he did not give any details about this benefit being passed on to the beneficiaries of the vaccine.
In his presentation, the Health Secretary said that India is now seeing a rise in the number of active cases after touching lowest mark in mid-February. Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Maharashtra are the top States registering a rise in the number of COVID cases and Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal being the top States showing a decline.
The Ministry’s data also noted that the daily new COVID deaths which was 159 on January 22 came down to 90 deaths on February 13 but has been moving upwards with the past 24 hours registering 126 deaths on Thursday.
