New Delhi: With an objective of meeting the sharp increasing demand for the vaccines to undertake extensive Covid-19 vaccination programme in the country, the Centre has given approval to import foreign-made vaccines.
The announcement was made by the government in order to have sufficient quantity of vaccine in the country to meet the growing demand and save lives of people.
The decision was announced after the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration on April 11, chaired by V K Paul, Member (Health), Niti Aayog.
“After holding detailed discussions, the Group has recommended that vaccines, which have been developed and are being manufactured in foreign countries.
Also which have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by USFDA, EMA, UK MHRA, PMDA Japan or which are listed in WHO (Emergency Use Listing) may be granted emergency use approval in India.
Mandating the requirement of post-approval parallel bridging clinical trial in place of conduct of local clinical trial as per the provisions prescribed under Second Schedule of the New Drugs & Clinical Trials Rules 2019,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
The statement added that the first 100 beneficiaries of such foreign vaccines would be checked for seven days for safety outcomes before it is rolled out for further immunisation programme within the country.
