Covaxin, Covishield to be available in hospitals, clinics

Covaxin and Covishield will now be available in the regular market as the Drug Controller General of India has given conditional market approval to these two Covid vaccines on Thursday.The subject expert committee of the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation has earlier recommended granting regular market approval to these Covid-19 vaccines for the adult population, subject to certain conditions.  However, this doesn't mean the two COVID-19 vaccines will be available at shops soon though people would be able to buy them from hospitals and clinics. Vaccination data has to be submitted to DCGI every six months. Data will have be updated on CoWIN app also.

The market sale of the two vaccines was approved under the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019. Covaxin and Covishield were granted Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) on January 3. The firms, in this case, Bharat Biotech (Covaxin) and Serum Institute of India (Covishield), shall submit data of ongoing clinical trials. All vaccination data will be recorded on the CoWIN platform. The approval is only for adult population.