Bharat Biotech Covaxin Starts Trails for Kids

Bharat Biotech is a maker of the coronavirus disease vaccine Covaxin and is expected to start paediatric trials in June. The company’s Business Development and International Advocacy Head Dr Raches Ella on Sunday.

Dr Ella said that we are focused on developing the product last year. Now our focus is on ramping up our manufacturing capacity. Kids vaccine trials of Bharath Biotech may get the license in the third quarter of this year. Responding to a question from one of the participants, Dr Ella said that Bharat Biotech will be ramping up the manufacturing capacity of Covaxin to 700 million doses by the end of this year.

He also added that they are happy to have the full support of the government because of which we can stand where we are today in this journey. The vaccine is co-developed by us and ICMR. The government placed an advanced purchase order of ₹1,500 crores. This will help us to increase our risk appetite. They are expanding to Bangalore and Gujarat. India has administered about 195,004,184 doses of vaccine against coronavirus disease, the most after China and the United States.

The young executive of Bharat Biotech also said that the company expects approval from the World Health Organization for Covaxin by the end of the third or fourth quarter. Since the vaccine is not included in WHO’s Emergency Use Listing, people who have been fully vaccinated by both doses of Covaxin might not be allowed to travel internationally. Whenever children contracted the infection then almost always symptoms are minimal, very mild disease or they are asymptomatic and because it is mild the mortality is very very less in them.