Zydus Cadila's COVID-19 vaccine likely to get approval this week

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) is likely to approve the COVID-19 vaccine of Zydus Cadila this week, making it the sixth vaccine to be approved in India.

Zydus Cadila had on July 1 announced that it had applied for emergency use authorisation (EUA) of its ZyCoV-D three-dose COVID-19 vaccine.

The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of DCGI is likely to approve the vaccine this week, news agency ANI reported on Monday citing sources.

ZyCoV-D is a DNA plasmid vaccine, which uses a portion of the genetic code -- DNA or RNA -- in the virus to stimulate an immune response. The company had conducted clinical trial for the vaccine in over 50 centres across the country, including in adolescent population in the 12-18 years age group.

Last week, the Centre gave EUA to Johnson and Johnson's (J&J) unit Janssen's single-dose COVID-19 vaccine. Serum Institute of India's Covishield, Bharat Biotech's Covaxin, Russia's Spunik V and Moderna Inc's vaccine are the other COVID-19 vaccines approved in India.

India has so far administered over 50.86 crore vaccine doses as part of the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination programme.

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