In what is seen as a major relief to India, the World Health Organization has finally approved Bharat Biotech's Covid vaccine Covaxin for emergency use, paving the way for the export of doses to other needy countries. The WHO approval will help India to take Covaxin to the world, with many nations struggling with supplies. Incidentally, ahead of the world health body's decision, Australia recognized Covaxin to establish the vaccination status of travellers.
This is good news for many Indians, especially those who were fully vaccinated with Covaxin but faced a dilemma of international travel because of its non-acceptability. There were many Indians who have left for their overseas jobs but were unable to attend work because Covaxin was yet to get acceptability.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while speaking recently at the inaugural session of the G-20 summit touched upon India's economic reforms and appealed to the world's top 20 economies to view India as their prime investment destination. It was here that the PM stressed the fact that a WHO approval to Covaxin would facilitate the process of vaccination. He also put forth the point that India was ready to produce over 5 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2022 to help the world battle through the pandemic.
While a photo-op of Modi embracing Pope Francis at the Vatican hogged attention with large sections labelling it as "political optics" to appease the minorities and even linking it to the electoral campaign back home, Modi's in-person confabulations with global leaders, including US President Joe Biden, and the push for Covaxin’s acceptability went mainly unnoticed. The Covaxin approval by Australia and WHO comes close on the heels of the G-20 summit which stressed the major imbalance between demand and supply of vaccines and how the global economy has been badly bruised during the pandemic.
There is some reason to celebrate now, but there are also reasons to ponder. If we may recall, India's drug regulator, the Central Drugs and Standards Committee had issued an emergency approval for Covaxin on January 3, 2021, while phase III clinical trials were still being conducted and phase II studies were not published then.
The 10-month long delay only reflects a failure somewhere. Let’s not forget that the world health body consistently maintained that the information provided was inadequate. Also, there were red flags raised on the vaccine clinical trials, trial ethics, data quality, emergency-use approval and trial rollout. It gave an impression that a concerted move was made to push Covaxin's emergency-use license.
Justice Chandrachud while hearing a petition recently faulted the government for not making it known to the public that Covaxin was not approved by the WHO. Also, the government did not allow people to choose their vaccines at the time of inoculation drives. Although it is better late than never, Covaxin which has managed to ride through the controversies will still carry cumbrous baggage on its global sojourn.
