Future of Crores in Maharashtra Hangs by a Thread as WHO's Delay on Covaxin Approval Persists

A grim situation has arisen in Maharashtra as crores of people have been pushed into employment anxiety as Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin, India’s indigenous Covid-19 vaccine, awaits the approval of the World Health Organization to get the Emergency Usage Listing.

In the financial capital of India, over a crore people have been administered with Covaxin. Among these recipients of the vaccine, many are sole breadwinners who are waiting to travel to abroad to resume their work that has suffered a setback due to the delay on the WHO nod, The Indian Express reported.

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A young man, Dinesh Patel, who is a bar waiter on a cruise ship, is considering selling off his family’s gold jewellery if the grim situation continues to persist. “Being the sole breadwinner, I am surviving on my hard-earned money. If this situation continues, I might have to sell off my family’s gold jewellery,”the 29-year-old told the IE.

The report further quoted Pushkar Nirantar, another seafarer, of being anxious of losing his job as he is unable to rejoin his duties. “My shipping company has rejected my joining letter twice due to the travel restrictions,” he told the publication, adding that currently he is working at “a local restaurant as a chef in Badlapur”.

Meanwhile, students who had received scholarships from universities abroad, too, are facing a similar situation.

“As Covaxin isn’t approved in Germany, I would be considered as unvaccianted. I would not get the green pass, which is required to travel to malls, restaurants, public space, colleges, etc. This means repeated RT-PCR testing, which is extremely costly,” Sangeeta Basu, a resident of Pune, told the Express.

Basu cancelled her MA studies in Germany on a 70 per cent scholarship and is now planning to apply next year again for her masters.

Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, which has developed Covaxin, had submitted EOI (Expression of Interest) to the WHO on April 19 for the vaccine’s Emergency Use Listing (EUL).

A top official of the global health agency on Thursday said that the UN body “trusts” the Indian industry that manufactures high-quality vaccines.

A technical advisory group of the UN health agency which met on Tuesday has sought “additional clarifications” from Bharat Biotech for Covaxin to conduct a final risk-benefit assessment for Emergency Use Listing of the vaccine.

“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, Dr Mariangela Simao, Assistant Director-General, Access to Medicines and Health Products at WHO, said at a press briefing in Geneva. She was responding to a question on the delay in granting the Emergency Use Listing to Covaxin while Chinese vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac were given approval even with lack of data. Simao said that when the technical advisory group met on October 26 to discuss the EUL for Covaxin, they asked Bharat Biotech for additional clarifications. The technical advisory group will reconvene on November 2 for the final risk-benefit assessment of Covaxin EUL.

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