India’s COVID-19
vaccination efforts received a boost of encouragement after Australia announced
that it has decided to recognise Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, India’s indigenously
produced coronavirus vaccine, ANI reported Monday. Australia has officially
recognised Covaxin for the purpose of establishing a traveller’s vaccination
status.

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Australia’s
Therapeutic Goods Administration (TBA) added Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and China’s
Sinopharm’s BBIBP-CorV to the list of approved vaccines as the country
continues to relax the stringent restrictions it had imposed in order to curb
the spread of the Delta variant. Travellers above the age of 12 vaccinated with
Covaxin and those above 18 vaccinated with BBIBP-CorV will be allowed to enter
Australia henceforth.

With this, India’s
Covishield and Covaxin have both been recognised by Australia as have China’s Coronavac
and BBIBP-CorV.

Covaxin, India’s
first indigenously developed coronavirus vaccine, was developed by Bharat
Biotech in association with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National
Institute of Virology (NIV). Covaxin has been recognised by Mauritius, Oman,
Philippines, Nepal, Mexico, Iran, Sri Lanka, Greece, Estonia and Zimbabwe have recognised
Covaxin.

The approval for
Covaxin will serve as a moral booster for India which has been seeking emergency-use
authorization (EUA) from the World Health Organization (WHO). Last week, the
United Nations health agency said that it trusts the Indian industry which
manufactures good quality vaccines and that Bharat Biotech has been regular and
quick in sending data.

“Let me say that
Bharat has been submitting data regularly and very quickly, but they submitted
the last batch of data on the 18th of October,” said Dr Mariangela
Simao, assistant director general, access to medicines and health products at WHO,
at a press conference in Geneva.

Simao was
responding to question on the delay in granting emergency-use listing to
Covaxin when China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac have been approved even “with lack
of data”.