India grants Novavax Covid-19 vaccine emergency use authorisation for teens

Thursday, March 24, 2022

On Tuesday, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) granted emergency use authorisation to Novavax Covid-19 vaccine Covovax for use on teenagers aged between 12 and 17.

The vaccine, also known as NVX-CoV2373, is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India under the brand name Covovax. Last month, Novavax conducted the last stage trial of the vaccine on 2,247 Indian teenagers aged between 12 and 17, which returned an 80% efficacy rate.

Novavax also ran phase three trials of Covovax in the United States and the United Kingdom on participants aged 18 years and older, which showed an efficacy rate of 90.4% and 89.7%, respectively.

Covovax is the first protein-based subunit vaccine against coronavirus to receive authorisation in India for this age group. Last week, India started vaccinating teenagers aged between 12 and 14 using the Biological E Corbevax.

President of Novavax Stanley C. Erck commented after the decision: "we're proud of this first approval in adolescents given the efficacy and safety that our data show in this population". CEO of the Serum Institute of India Adar Poonawalla said it "marks another significant milestone in strengthening our immunisation efforts".

In December last year, DCGI approved Covovax for adults aged over 18 in India. Novavax is already listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization and authorised for emergency use in Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

"Novavax says its COVID vaccine gets India authorisation for teens" — Reuters, March 23, 2022
"Novavax Covid vaccine gets approval for emergency use for ages 12-18" — Times Now, March 23, 2022
Press Release: "Novavax and Serum Institute of India Announce First Emergency Use Authorization of Novavax' COVID-19 Vaccine in Adolescents ≥12 to <18 in India" — Novavax, March 22, 2022

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License