Zydus Cadila’s vaccine gets EUA nod for 12+ age group

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.