Indigenously developed Zydus Cadila COVID-19 vaccine ZyCoV-D has received approval for Emergency Use Authorisation from the Drug Controller General of India and it will be administered to people 12 years and above, the Department of Biotechnology said on Friday.
With Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA), ZyCoV-D has also become the first vaccine to be administered to those in the age group of 12-18 years in the country. The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) said that ZyCoV-D is the world’s first DNA-based vaccine against the coronavirus and when injected produces the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and elicits an immune response, which plays a vital role in protection from the disease as well as viral clearance. It is the sixth vaccine to get the emergency use authorisation in the country after Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik V and the vaccines of Moderna and Johnson and Johnson. “Zydus Cadila has received approval for Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) from the DCGI) for ZyCoV-D today i.e. 20/08/2021, the world’s first and India’s indigenously developed DNA-based vaccine for COVID-19 to be administered in humans including children and adults 12 years and above,” the government department said. The DBT said that Interim results from Phase-III clinical trials in over 28,000 volunteers, showed primary efficacy of 66.6 per cent for symptomatic RT-PCR positive cases. This has been the largest vaccine trial so far in India for COVID-19, it said. The vaccine had already exhibited robust immunogenicity and tolerability and safety profile in the adaptive Phase I/II clinical trials carried out earlier.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India is fighting COVID-19 with full vigour after the vaccine got approval.
