Zydus Cadila's COVID-19 vaccine 'ZyCoV-D' will be needle-free.
Zydus Cadila Vaccine News: The Government is likely to give its nod for emergency use authorisation (EUA) to Zydus Cadila's needle-free Covid-19 vaccine 'ZyCoV-D' this week, news agency ANI reported on Monday. 'ZyCoV-D' will be the sixth Covid vaccine to be available in India.
Five Covid vaccines - Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik V, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine - have already been approved by the Government so far.
'ZyCoV-D' will be a three-dose vaccine and the companys plans to manufacture 10-12 crore doses annually, Zydus Cadila had said in a statement last month. The pharma major added that it had conducted the largest trial of Covid vaccine in India spreading across 50 testing centres.
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Last week, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had said in Parliament that four more Indian pharmaceutical companies may start the vaccine production by October-November to accelerate the inoculation drive.
Giving the data on vaccine allocation, Mandaviya said that even 7 to 9 per cent of the doses that remain unutilised by the private hospitals are being used by the government vaccination centres.
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Mandaviya added that Biologicals E and Novartis vaccines will also be available in the market in the coming days, while Zydus Cadila will soon get an emergency-use nod from an expert committee.
Replying to a query by Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leader Amar Patnaik about the vaccine roll out plan for 12-18 years old, the minister said, "The government's target is to vaccinate the entire population and constant efforts are being made to achieve this."
(With inputs from agencies)
