As countries prep to gradually restart travel and tourism after prolonged Covid restrictions, there is nervousness among students about the World Health Organisation and many countries not listing Bharat Biotech's Covaxin among approved vaccines.
The US, Canada, Australia, Ireland and the EU are among those do not have Covaxin on their approved list of vaccines for now. And top universities are reportedly allowing those who have received vaccines approved by the countries or WHO.
"Covaxin is not on the approved list, which means students may not be exempt from mandatory hotel quarantine. To stay in a hotel for 14 days will be very expensive," said Soumya Pandey, Country Advisor, University of Limerick.
The WHO has Pfizer, Moderna and Covishield on its approved list but for Covaxin, it says "more information required".
Bharat Biotech, in a statement, said regulatory approvals for Covaxin are in process in "more than 60 countries" including US, Brazil and Hungary.
"Emergency use authorisations have been obtained in 13 countries with more to follow. Application for Emergency Use List has been submitted to WHO-Geneva and regulatory approvals are expected in July-September," said the company..
It also said most countries recommend vaccinations against COVID-19. But unvaccinated travelers can travel with negative RT-PCR tests in the absence of any other country-specific travel restrictions.
At a meeting on Tuesday with the government on the status of its application before WHO, the company reportedly said it was on track and had submitted "90 per cent of the documentation required" for WHO's authorization.
"The remaining is expected to be submitted in June," the company said according to government sources. It also reportedly assured that it is confident of getting clearance subsequently, "given its experience of getting its other vaccines pre-qualified by WHO".
Academic sessions are set to begin by August-September in foreign universities.
Government sources say Bharat Biotech informed that it was in the final stages of submitting documents for Covaxin's regulatory approvals in Brazil and Hungary after "extensive bilateral consultations". "BBIL is also in the final stages of negotiations with the FDA of US for conducting small-scale phase-III clinical trials in the US," the company reportedly told the Centre.
Bharat Biotech, sources say, told the government it is confident about the robustness of its dossier with data for much longer duration - for anti-body persistence after six months as well as eight months. Also, Bharat Biotech was among the few companies that had published papers on all four Covid virus variants, according to sources.
Covaxin and Serum Institute of India's Covishield are the two vaccines being used to inoculate people in the country. Russia's Sputnik will become the third. Covaxin was approved for emergency use in January without full clinical data, which caused a lot of controversy and was linked to vaccine hesitancy in the initial stages of the nationwide vaccine drive.
In April, Bharat Biotech and the government's top medical body ICMR claimed that Covaxin had shown overall interim effectiveness of 78 per cent and was 100 per cent effective against severe Covid.
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