Covovax booster now on CoWin app, says Adar Poonawalla, suggests elderly mask up, take the dose

Earlier Poonawalla took to Twitter to inform that the Covovax booster is now on the CoWin App and `is excellent against all variants and is approved in the United States and Europe’. He urged the elderly population to mask up as Omicron XBB variants can be severe.

According to the latest Covid 19 update on April 11 from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India’s active caseload currently stands at 37,093. A total of 5,676 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours and the daily covid positivity rate is 2.88 percent. In the last 24 hours, a total of 385 doses were administered. To date as part of the nationwide vaccination drive a total of 220.66 cr Total Vaccine doses (95.21 cr Second Dose and 22.87 cr Precaution Dose) have been administered.

SII’s Covovax on the CoWin portal as a heterologous booster dose for adults will be priced at Rs 225 per dose plus GST charges. Covovax can be administered to those who have received two shots of either Covishield or Covaxin vaccines. Covovax had been approved for restricted use in emergency-use situations in adults by the Drug Controller General of India in December 2021 in the 12-17 age group and also in children (7-11 years) in June 2022. The vaccine received market authorization from the DCGI in January this year as a precautionary dose.

It was sometime in August 2020 that the US-based vaccine maker Novavax Inc announced a license agreement with SII for the development and commercialization of NVX-COV2373 – its Covid-19 vaccine candidate in India and low and middle-income countries. Covovax was manufactured through the technology transfer from Novovax and according to SII, Covovax has been approved by the World Health Organisation and US Food and Drug Administration.