Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist of WHO, on Thursday said that data on the Bharat Biotech’s vaccine, Covaxin, looked good.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Dr. Soumya said that the pre-submission meeting was held on June 23 and the data packet was being assembled, and that the Phase-3 trial data looked good and that they’ve looked at the other variants as well. She added that the overall efficacy was quite high but the efficacy of the vaccine against the Delta variant was low yet still quite good. The scientists said that the safety profile met with the WHO’s benchmarks.
She added that they have to keep a close eye on all the vaccines which had received an emergency use listing as they continue to seek more data. Dr. Soumya said that most parts of the world had seen an uptick in coronavirus cases and no reduction in deaths.
She said that WHO would not recommend any booster shots anytime soon and the focus would remain on widening the scopes of primary vaccinations.
Dr. Soumya said that the increase in social mixing and relaxation of public health measures were also among the reasons for the rise of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the world. The low rate of vaccination leaves many people prone to infection.
Dr. Soumya said that as the virus mutates further, the world could be witnessing an increase in the cases of the virus, as the existing mutations had already seen variants due to mutations. She emphasized that there was a need to collect more data and evidence on the variants for the global collaboration of sequencing and research was required.
She added that there was a need to maintain the social distancing norms and to wear masks as even if 70 percent of the population was vaccinated, the remaining 30 percent were still vulnerable. She said that the government needs to keep on with the testing and tracking as at this stage of the pandemic vaccines were not enough.
