The Centre on Tuesday hailed the Novavax vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and said its efficacy data is promising and encouraging. The vaccine's clinical trials are in an advanced stage of completion in India, it added.
"What we are learning from the available data is that this vaccine is very safe and it is highly effective but what makes this vaccine relevant for today is the fact that this vaccine will be produced in India by Serum Institute," NITI Aayog member V K Paul said at a press conference.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) also produces Covishield, one of the first Covid-19 vaccines to be available in the country.
Preparatory work for the production of Novavax has been done by the SII, Paul said, adding that they are also conducting a bridging trial which is in advanced stages of completion.
"I am also hoping that they will also start trials on children, which is of a special interest to all of us. The pace of vaccination should see a renewed energy from next week onward when we will realign our efforts, that of the state and effective scale up at the ground level. Teams both at the Centre and states are working on building new guidelines for high-speed coverage of the vaccination across the country," he said.
{{/usCountry}}"I am also hoping that they will also start trials on children, which is of a special interest to all of us. The pace of vaccination should see a renewed energy from next week onward when we will realign our efforts, that of the state and effective scale up at the ground level. Teams both at the Centre and states are working on building new guidelines for high-speed coverage of the vaccination across the country," he said.
{{/usCountry}}On Monday, Novavax Inc said its vaccine was 90% effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 and 100% effective at preventing moderate and severe symptoms of the virus. It demonstrated 93% efficacy against predominantly circulating variants of concern and variants of interest, the company added.
"The vaccine candidate 'NVX-CoV2373' demonstrated 100 per cent protection against moderate and severe disease, 90% efficacy overall, and met the primary endpoint in its PREVENT-19 pivotal Phase 3 trial," Novavax's statement read.
The study enrolled 29,960 participants across 119 sites in the United States and Mexico to evaluate efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine, the statement added.