Decision on EUL of Covaxin likely in 4-6 weeks: WHO

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation (WHO) is likely to take a decision on Emergency Use Listing (EUL) of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin and announce it in the first week of August.

A WHO pre-qualification, or EUL, is necessary for a vaccine company to supply vaccines for global facilities such as Covax or international procurement.

The WHO has approved vaccines Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca- SK Bio/SII, Johnson & Johnson Janssen, Moderna and Sinopharm for emergency use.

The indigenous vaccine showed 63.6 per cent efficacy against the Delta variant of Covid-19, which has spread in many other countries.

Covaxin demonstrated 93.4 per cent efficacy against severe symptomatic Covid-19 and 63.6 per cent against asymptomatic Covid-19.

The trial was conducted on 25,800 subjects, and the data submitted to the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) showed the vaccine was "well-tolerated."