The Serum Institute of India (SII) has sought the inclusion of its Covid-19 vaccine Covovax in the CoWIN portal as a heterologous booster dose for adults, news agency PTI reported. This comes a few days after the vaccine was granted market authorisation for use as a heterologous booster dose in adults who have received two doses of either Covishield or Covaxin. On January 16, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) granted market authorisation to Covovax. 

Based on recommendations by the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, the DCGI granted market authorisation to Covovax.

Quoting official sources, a PTI report said Prakash Kumar Singh, Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs at SII, wrote a letter to the Union Health Ministry to request inclusion of Covovax in the CoWIN portal. 

Status of Covovax in India

On December 28, 2021, the DCGI approved Covovax for restricted use in energy situations in adults. On March 9, 2022, the DCGI approved Covovax for restricted emergency use in children belonging to the age group of 12 to 17 years. On June 28, 2022, Covovax was approved for use in children aged seven to 11 years, subject to certain conditions. 

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All about Covovax

Covovax is a nanoparticle-based vaccine manufactured by technology transfer from Novavax. Covovax is approved by the European Medicines Agency for conditional marketing authorisation, and has been granted emergency use listing by the World Health Organization (WHO). 

A nanoparticle-based vaccine is one in which the receptor-binding domain (RBD), which is a part of the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, is attached to a protein designed to form nanometre-sized protein particles, or nanoparticles. SARS-CoV-2 attaches itself to cells using the spike protein. 

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These nanoparticles could be composed of lipids, metal and non-metal inorganics, several polymers, and virus-like particles which have been tested for research, according to a study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), NIH. Virus-like-particles (VLP) are self-assembling nanoparticles lacking infectious nucleic acid.

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