India authorizes emergency use of Sputnik V
India has authorized the emergency use of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine and will fasttrack approval for other shots already passed by other major countries, authorities said Tuesday, as infection rates soared to a new record high. The government has faced mounting calls to approve more vaccines during the surge among the 1.3 billion population and a slowerthan-expected mass inoculation drive.
Sputnik V is the third drug to be approved by India after Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield and Covaxin, which was developed by Indian firm Bharat Biotech. The SEC expert panel said the Russian vaccine should be authorized “in emergency situations” and this has been accepted, the health ministry said in a statement.
G V Prasad, co-chair of pharmaceutical company Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, said his firm was “very pleased to obtain the emergency use authorization”. “With the rising cases in India, vaccination is the most effective tool in our battle against COVID-19,” he added.
The health ministry also said it would expedite the approval of vaccines not made in India-unlike the first three-to “expand the basket of vaccines for domestic use and hasten the pace and coverage of vaccination”. The jabs will need to have been already been granted emergency-use authorization by regulators, such as the US Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicine Agency and others in Britain and Japan or the World Health Organization, the ministry said.