Zydus Cadila’s 3-dose vaccine gets approval, 1st jab for children above 12 in India

India is set to have its fifth Covid-19 vaccine soon. Reports suggest that an expert committee of the Indian drug regulator has recommended approving of ZyCoV-D, Zydus Cadila’s three-dose Covid-19 vaccine, for emergency use authorization.

ZyCoV-D is a 12-year-old onward vaccine and there were 28,000 trial pool which included under 18 candidates as well. 

Cadila Healthcare Ltd., an Ahmedabad-based Pharmaceutical firm, had applied for authorisation on July 1 for its three-dose Covid-19 vaccine. The expert committee has asked the drugmaker to submit additional data for the 20 dose regimen of its vaccine.

India’s largest clinical trial of Covid-19 vaccine was conducted by Zydus Cadila which showed 66.66% against symptomatic Covid cases and 100% for moderate cases. ZyCoV-D vaccine was also tested in about 1000 subjects between the age group of 12-18 group for the first time and was found to be safe and very well tolerated.

ZyCoV-D is a plasmid DNA vaccine which is applied using a ‘needle free injector’ which Zydus claims it significatly reduces side-effects.