Serum Institute, the country’s largest pharmaceutical company based in Pune, which is preparing Oxford’s corona vaccine in India in collaboration with Astragenica, now plans to trial the Novavax vaccine on children. News agency ANI has quoted sources as saying that in the month of July, Serum Institute can test Novavax vaccine on children. Serum Institute is expecting the arrival of the US company Novavax’s corona vaccine in the country by September.
The Central Government on Tuesday said that the data on the effectiveness of Novavax vaccine against Covid-19 is promising and encouraging and its clinical trials are in advanced stage of completion in India. NITI Aayog Member (Health) VK Paul while addressing a press conference said that publicly available data also indicates that the vaccine is safe and highly effective.
He said, “What we are seeing from the available data is that the vaccine is very safe and effective, but the fact that makes this vaccine effective for today is that the vaccine will be produced by the Serum Institute in India.” The preparatory work has already been completed by Serum Institute and they are testing the system to make it fully functional which is in advanced stage of completion
He said, “I also hope that he will start testing on children as well which is of particular interest to all of us. The pace of vaccination will get new energy from the beginning of next week when we will re-organize our efforts, the efforts of the states and its impact will be visible at the grassroots level. Teams are working to formulate new guidelines both at the central and state levels for the rapid spread of vaccination across the country.
Novavax Inc., which has tied up with Serum Institute of India to manufacture the vaccine. said on Monday that its vaccine is highly effective against COVID-19 and provides protection against all forms of the virus. The company said that the vaccine is about 90.4 percent effective overall and preliminary data shows that it is safe.