India OKs AstraZeneca and locally-made COVID-19 vaccines

India OKs AstraZeneca and locally-made COVID-19 vaccines

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NEW DELHI (AP) — India authorized two COVID-19 vaccines on Sunday, paving the way for a huge inoculation program to stem the coronavirus pandemic in the world’s second most populous country.

India’s drugs regulator gave an emergency authorization for the vaccines developed by Oxford University and U.K.-based drugmaker AstraZeneca and another developed by the Indian company Bharat Biotech.

Drugs Controller General Dr. Venugopal G Somani said that both vaccines will be administered in two dosages.

Somani said the decision to approve the vaccines was taken after “careful examination” by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, India's pharmaceutical regulator.

The country’s initial immunization plan aims to vaccinate 300 million people — health care workers, front-line staff including police and those considered vulnerable due to their age or other diseases — by August 2021.

Over 20,000 health workers have been trained so far to administer the vaccine, the Health Ministry said.

The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturing company, has been contracted by AstraZeneca to make a billion doses for developing nations, including India. On Wednesday, Britain became the first to approve the shot.

Partial results from studies for the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot in almost 24,000 people in Britain, Brazil and South Africa suggest that the vaccine is safe and about 70% effective. This isn’t as good as some other vaccine candidates, and there are also concerns about how well the vaccine will protect older people.

Researchers had also claimed that the vaccine protected against the virus in 62% of people who were given two doses and 90% in those who were given half a dose because of a manufacturing error. But the latter group included...

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