WHO grants emergency approval for Covaxin vaccine

An eighth vaccine against Covid-19 approved by the WHO. The World Health Organization granted emergency approval for the Covaxin vaccine on Wednesday, November 3, fully developed and manufactured in India. This vaccine is recommended from the age of 18. It requires two doses four weeks apart, but is found to be “particularly well suited to low and middle income countries because of the ease with which it can be stored”, explains the WHO in a press release (in English).

According to its manufacturer, Bharat Biontech, Covaxin can be transported and stored long term at a temperature of 2 to 8 ° C, a temperature in a home refrigerator. The company also points out that it is packaged in a multiple dose vial to reduce waste.

The Covaxin vaccine, or BBV152, is an inactivated virus vaccine, a relatively classic technology but with a new adjuvant that makes it more effective, according to the manufacturer. It is this adjuvant that distinguishes it from the two other inactivated virus vaccines already authorized by the WHO, those from the Chinese laboratories Sinovac and Sinopharm.

The approval by the WHO makes it possible to facilitate the international recognition of the vaccine and especially to the UN agencies and the Covax system, aimed at ensuring an equitable distribution of the vaccines against the Covid-19 in the world, to make use of it. This approval had already been granted to vaccines from Pfizer-Biontech, Moderna, AstraZeneca (WHO has two vaccines from this laboratory, one of which is made in India), Johnson & Johnson, Sinopharm and Sinovac.