Covaxin, India's indigenously developed coronavirus vaccine, may be cleared by the World Health Organisation as early as next week when the UN agency and an independent group of experts meet. This comes almost a week after WHO delayed the emergency use authorisation (EUA) for Covaxin as the global body sent more technical queries to its manufacturer, Bharat Biotech.
"WHO & an independent group of experts are scheduled to meet next week to carry out the risk/benefit assessment and come to a final decision whether to grant Emergency Use Listing to Covaxin," WHO tweeted on Tuesday.
Bharat Biotech "has been submitting data to the WHO on a rolling basis and submitted additional info at WHO's request on 27 September", another tweet read.
Meanwhile, India reported 18,833 cases in the last 24 hours, which is marginally higher than Tuesday's figure when the country reported the lowest single-day rise in Covid cases (18,346) since early March. The country also reported 278 deaths over the same period. The active cases declined to 2,46,687, the lowest in 203 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.
