Bharat Biotech’s intranasal Covid vaccine, iNCOVACC, is likely to be available at government centers in Delhi by mid-February, senior officials of the Delhi government noted.
According to a report by Hindustan Times, the availability of the vaccine in private centres will, however, depend on the bookings made by each hospital.
“We will start procuring stocks. After February 15, the nasal vaccines are expected to be administered in our centres,” a government official told HT.
Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya and science and technology minister Jitendra Singh launched India’s first indigenously made nasal Covid-19 vaccine on the occasion of Republic Day on Thursday.
The vaccine will be priced at ₹325 a dose in government hospitals and ₹800 in private settings.
Earlier in December, the nasal vaccine was approved by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO). Later that month, India’s technical expert committee on immunization, the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), also recommended it be included as one of the “precautionary dose” adults can take as boosters.
However, in the national capital, where the coverage of the two primary doses is over 97%, the focus of making the nasal variety available in the market will be to improve the booster coverage, HT reported.
The intranasal vaccine iNCOVACC is a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vector vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilized spike protein. This vaccine candidate was evaluated in phase I, II, and III clinical trials with successful results, the Hyderabad-based vaccine maker had said in a statement.
Deliberating further on the relevance of the nasal vaccine, Max Healthcare’s group medical director Dr. Sandeep Budhiraja informed that only 27 percent of India’s population has taken the booster dose and the nasal vaccine will encourage people to get the booster dose due to its ease of administration.
Speaking to HT, he said, “I think people will be encouraged to get the nasal vaccines as their booster because of the ease of administration. Some people have a phobia of needles so it is an easy vaccine to administer. Currently, just about 27% of the population in India has taken their third dose. There is a need for people to take their booster doses and with this sort of nasal vaccine being propagated and approved, the uptake among the people would be higher."
Meanwhile, the country reported 99 new cases of Covid-19 while the active cases declined to 1,896, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.
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