It is important to roll-out early vaccination drive to deal with Covid-19 pandemic and there are no safety concerns for the two vaccines being administered right now, according to K VijayRaghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India.
Speaking on ‘Vaccine Development in India’ as part of the Lecture Series of Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) on Thursday, VijayRaghavan said, “It is important to keep in mind that there are no safety concerns of these vaccines except some side-effects in very few cases.’’
Referring to Covishield of Serum Institute and Covaxin of Bharat Biotech, the scientist justified their emergency use authorisation by the Drug Controller General of India.
“I understand that AstraZeneca - Serum Institutes’s vaccine will soon get emergency use authorisation in the EU,” VijayRaghavan said adding the Covaxin’s phase-III trials’ outcome will be published very soon.”
“Levels (of Covid19) are low now but we cannot be complacent going by the experience of countries like UK where there was a sudden surge in Covid-19 cases”
CoWIN app
Referring to CoWIN app’s availability, VijayRaghavan said app’s availability will increase as the vaccination programme goes to the next level of covering those who are above 50 years of age.
On the vaccine development efforts in the country, the advisor to the Government said India has great tradition of vaccine development and established itself as a global provider of vaccines.
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