Currently, India is only administering the Covid-19 vaccines to those 12-18 years. (Express photo)
The subject expert panel on Covid-19 vaccines on Thursday recommended emergency use authorisation for Hyderabad-based Biological E’s Corbevax for the 5-11 years age group subject to conditions, Health Ministry sources said.
According to sources, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) will take up the recommendation for formal approval in the next few days.
If approved, Corbevax will become the first Covid-19 vaccine for this age group in India. The US and the UK have been administering Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine for children aged five and above.
Currently, India is only administering Covid-19 vaccines to those above 12 years — Corbevax is given to those in the 12-14 years age group, and Covaxin to those in the 15-18 years group. According to official data, 2.53 crore beneficiaries in the 12-14 years group have been given the first dose of Corbevax, and 12,47,298 are fully vaccinated.
Corbevax is India’s first indigenously developed Receptor Binding Domain (RBD) Protein sub-unit vaccine against Covid-19, administered through the intramuscular route with two doses scheduled 28 days apart. It can be stored at 2-8 degrees Celsius, which is best suited for India’s requirements.
It is built on the traditional subunit vaccine platform: instead of using the whole virus, the platform triggers an immune response by using fragments, like the spike protein.
Corbevax includes an antigen developed by Texas Children’s Hospital Centre for Vaccine Development and in-licensed from BCM Ventures, Baylor College of Medicine’s integrated commercialisation team.The centre has already made an advance payment of Rs 1,500 crore to reserve 30 crore doses of Corbevax.
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On February 21, Corbevax got emergency use authorisation from India’s drug regulator for the 12-18 years age group. Biological E. had earlier announced that it would manufacture 75 million doses of the vaccine per month, anticipating 100-plus million doses per month from February 2022.
Last September, Biological E. received approval to conduct Phase II/III clinical trial in children and adolescents aged 5-18 years. Based on the no-objection certificate, the company initiated clinical studies in October 2021.
Kaunain Sheriff M is an award-winning investigative journalist and the National Health Editor at The Indian Express. He is the author of Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, an investigation into one of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies.
With over a decade of experience, Kaunain brings deep expertise in three areas of investigative journalism: law, health, and data. He currently leads The Indian Express newsroom’s in-depth coverage of health.
His work has earned some of the most prestigious honours in journalism, including the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) Award, and the Mumbai Press Club’s Red Ink Award.
Kaunain has also collaborated on major global investigations. He was part of the Implant Files project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which exposed malpractices in the medical device industry across the world. He also contributed to an international investigation that uncovered how a Chinese big-data firm was monitoring thousands of prominent Indian individuals and institutions in real time.
Over the years, he has reported on several high-profile criminal trials, including the Hashimpura massacre, the 2G spectrum scam, and the coal block allocation case. Within The Indian Express, he has been honoured three times with the Indian Express Excellence Award for his investigations—on the anti-Sikh riots, the Vyapam exam scam, and the abuse of the National Security Act in Uttar Pradesh. ... Read More
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