New Delhi: Concerns have been expressed by a national network of scientists and people’s science movements over the World Health Organization (WHO) not approving ICMR-Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin for emergency use listing.
It warned that India looked set to again make the blunders it committed in the approval process for Covaxin in the way it was approving Zydus Cadilla’s ZyCov-D three-dose vaccine for 12 years and older.
According to the All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN), it was a serious setback to India’s plans to distribute the vaccine to other countries and to those travelling abroad who took Covaxin as the WHO delayed the clearance seeking more technical details.
Referring to its earlier call of disclosing Covaxin’s trial data, AIPSN said in a statement on Wednesday that serious damage was done to India’s reputation by this flawed application to the WHO regulators “which has also besmirched the standing of Indian science and regulatory systems, which will now come under heightened international scrutiny and suspicion”.
“BB applied to DCGI for EUA with grossly inadequate data from clinical trials inviting rejection, followed by behind-the-scenes arm twisting by government which resulted in the grant of EUA. More detailed results of Phase-3 clinical trials were then released by BB in instalments, interim results two months later and complete trial data in June 2021,” AIPSN further said via the statement.
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