LIVE: India has Covid-19 vaccine in sight ahead of dry run on Saturday
Coronavirus live updates: India reported 20,036 fresh Covid-19 cases on Friday pushing the overall tally to 10,286,710, according to Health Ministry. The death toll from the deadly infection jumped to 148,994.
The 10-member Subject Expert Committee of India’s Central Drug Standard Control Organisation on Friday approved emergency use authorisation of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine ‘Covishield’.
The expert panel had convened a meeting to take a call on the emergency use authorisation sought by the Serum Institute of India, the manufacturer of Covishield, and Bharat Biotech for its Covaxin. Once the vaccines are cleared by the committee, the application will be sent to Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) V.G. Somani for final approval.
The World Health Organization cleared the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for emergency use, meaning poorer countries may soon get access to the shot already available in Europe and North America. Every country that has a drug regulatory agency will have to issue its own approval for any Covid-19 vaccine, but countries with weak systems usually rely on WHO to vet the shots.
World coronavirus update: The global tally of coronavirus cases stands at 83,764,622. While 59,298,311 have recovered, 1,824,252 have lost their lives. Meanwhile, the US continues to be the worst-hit country with 20,422,952 cases.
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