Bharat Bio jab is 200% safe: Ella

Bharat Biotech, under criticism over the emergency use authorisation it received for its Covid-29 vaccine Covaxin, on Monday launched a staunch defence with company chairman Dr Krishna Ella saying that Bharat Biotech and its vaccine were being unfairly targeted for being Indian.

Answering a spate of questions over Covaxin during a virtual press conference, Dr Ella said his company did not deserve such a backlash and made it clear that some of the criticism of Covaxin was uncalled for.

Reacting to Serum Institute of India (SII) chief executive officer Adar Poonawalla telling a television channel that there were only three safe Covid-19 vaccines — the Oxford-Astra Zeneca’s Covishield, which SII is producing in the country, and the two from Pfizer and Moderna — and the others were “safe, just like water”, Dr Ella said, “We do 200 per cent honest clinical trials and yet we receive backlash. If I am wrong, tell me. Some companies have branded me like “water”. I want to deny that. We are scientists.”

He also said, in a clear reference to Serum Institute: “How did another Indian company get a licence based on UK data? I will not name them. But we have conducted trials in India, but we are not being given.”

Referring to the confusion over dosages administered to some volunteers of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, Dr Ella said: “The other country does a clinical trial in a lousy way. If I had done that, do you think I would have been let off? I would have faced Public Interest Litigations, National Human Rights Commission and questions. If a clinical trial has gone wrong, how can I do that?”

Referring to the work done by Bharat Biotech in the field of vaccines and developing Covaxin, the 26,000 volunteers of whom more than 24,000 have been recruited for Phase 3 trials of the vaccine in the country, Dr Ella said, “But we do not get recognition. I may not have the Royal Society membership, but I am doing right by global public health. I am doing what I can do as a scientist. I will never hurt an individual in my life.”

He said, “I want Indian innovation to succeed. I want Indian scientists to get global recognition.”