The Centre on Thursday told the Madras High Court that its Department of Biotechnology (DBT) had been supporting research and development of 11 new COVID-19 vaccines by private and public sector laboratories in the country.
Three of those had progressed from the proof of concept to the clinical development stage and were currently undergoing clinical trials, it said.
The submission was made before the first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, who were seized of a public interest litigation petition taken up by the court suo motu to monitor the fight against COVID-19.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) R. Sankaranarayanan said the regulatory and testing processes had been simplified for offshore vaccines too.
He said the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC) had decided to allow the conduct of bridging trials of offshore vaccines simultaneously with its vaccination, following due safety and quality protocols.
“This will enable earlier introduction of offshore vaccines and cut short the time required for the in-country bridging trial by four months,” he said.
The court was also told that the DBT had facilitated and supported two public sector undertakings — Indian Immunologicals Limited in Hyderabad and Haffkine Institute in Mumbai — to produce Covaxin, which had been licensed by Bharat Biotech International Limited. “All these efforts are likely to result in the increased availability of COVID-19 vaccines in the coming months,” the ASG told the court.
Responding to an observation made by the court during the last hearing of the case that the proposed future allocation of vaccines to Tamil Nadu appeared to be skewed and somewhat disappointing, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, through senior Central government standing counsel K. Srinivasamurthy, said the allocation was being made on the basis of average consumption by each State.
Tamil Nadu is likely to receive 6.6 lakh doses of the vaccine for free between June 1 and 15. On the other hand, the Centre fixes the doses that could be procured directly by the State governments, for vaccinating the 18 to 44 years age group, on pro rata basis by taking into account the population of such age group in each State and Tamil Nadu is likely to get 11.52 lakh doses for the 18-44 age group in June, the court was informed.
