New Delhi: The government has approved the export of 20 million doses of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India (SII) to Indonesia, Reuters reported citing a government document and a source.
The government has decided to allow the export of 10 million doses of a licensed-version of the AstraZeneca shot made by SII, which it calls Covishield, to the global vaccine-sharing programme COVAX, the sources said. Shipment is likely to happen towards the end of next month, one of the sources added.
However, SII and the health ministry could not be contacted early on Friday. According to Reuters, SII last month said it could produce up to 100 million Covovax doses by December 2021.
On Wednesday, the European Union’s (EUs’) drug regulator said that it could decide on Novovax’s Covid-19 vaccine approval within weeks if the data it has received from the drugmaker was sufficient to prove the shot’s effectiveness.
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Meanwhile, another Southeast Asian country — the Philippines — had approved the emergency use of a Covid-19 vaccine by Novavax, said the country’s food and drug agency chief.
Earlier, India had exported Covid-19 vaccines to Bangladesh, Nepal, Iran, and Myanmar. However, during the second wave in April-May the government had stopped exporting vaccines due to rising cases of Covid-19 in the country. The Centre relaxed the restrictions of exporting vaccines only after India administered around 1 billion doses to its citizens.
Meanwhile, according to the latest PTI report, a total of 110 nations have agreed to reciprocal recognition of Covid-19 vaccination certificates with India, official sources said on Wednesday.