India’s already in use COVID-19 vaccine found to be 81% effective

Indian pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech announced phase 3 clinical results of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, COVAXIN. In the trial results, the company says that COVAXIN demonstrates an interim clinical efficacy of 81 percent against the novel coronavirus.

“The clinical trial will continue through to final analysis at 130 confirmed cases in order to gather further data and to evaluate the efficacy of COVAXIN in additional secondary study endpoints,” the company stated.

“Today is an important milestone in vaccine discovery, for science and our fight against coronavirus. With today’s results from our Phase 3 clinical trials, we have now reported data on our COVID-19 vaccine from Phase 1, 2, and 3 trials involving around 27,000 participants.”

COVAXIN is one of the two COVID-19 vaccines approved for emergency use in India for its mega vaccination drive, which started on 16 January, 2021 and is now in the next phase. The other one is Serum Institute of India’s locally-made Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, Covishield.

Already in use

COVAXIN has been administered to hundreds of Indian citizens already including to prime minister Narendra Modi, who took the first shot recently marking the beginning of the second phase of vaccinations in the country for elderly citizens above 60 years of age.

Meanwhile, Bharat Biotech has been supplying its vaccine doses to other countries apart from India. Recently, the vaccine maker confirmed that the company has signed an agreement with Brazil for the supply of 20 million doses of COVAXIN vaccine.

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