The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) on Monday has authorized Russia’s Covid vaccine Sputnik V for emergency use in India.
India which has been recording highest surge everyday now has three Covid vaccine after Sputnik V’s authorization.
The other two vaccines — Covidshield by the Serum Institute of India and Covaxin by Bharat Biotech were authorized in January this year.
A statement by the Russian Direct Investment Fund or RDIF (Russia’s sovereign wealth fund) said that India becomes 60th country to authorize this Russia based vaccine.
“Sputnik V ranks second among coronavirus vaccines globally in terms of the number of approvals issued by government regulators,” the statement further said.
In India it is being manufactured by Dr Reddy, who claimed it to be highly effective with 91.6 per cent– after Pfizer and Moderna. Dr Reddy’s had applied for its emergency use on February 19 however, the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Con February 19 for emergency use of the vaccine, which is in Phase 3 of clinical trials in India. It was recommended for use by the Subject Expert Control Organization approved it on Monday.
On January 16 India had begun world’s largest vaccination drive which has vaccinated over 10 crore beneficiaries so far. But after the Centre widened the vaccination net and made more people eligible for taking the vaccine shots, many states started facing shortage of vaccine.
India which was at the third position after America and Brazil to record highest cases has surpassed Brazil and became the second most affected country with 1.35 crore cases.
“India is a vaccine-manufacturing hub and our strategic partner for production of Sputnik V. RDIF has created partnerships with a number of India’s leading pharmaceutical companies for production of Sputnik V which will provide for both vaccination of the population in India and global distribution of the Russian vaccine. Over 850 million doses of Sputnik V are going to be produced in India annually sufficient to vaccinate more than 425 million people around the world,” said Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of RDIF.
