Recently on 30 March, Brazil’s drug regulator ANVISA had rejected Bharat Biotech’s application for supplying Covaxin in the country.
They claimed Bharat Biotech, the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company that is manufacturing this indigenous vaccine in India, has not taken adequate measures to completely kill or inactivate the virus.
They also alleged a few other problems with the vaccine such as the possibility of variations in the potency and antigen quantity in the vaccine doses. All of which lack of a guarantee in how safe Covaxin is.
And so, Brazil decided to not go ahead and buy the 20 million Covaxin doses that it was planning to get until Bharat Biotech fixes these problems.
But these irregularities that ANVISA is pointing out, why did the CDSCO not raise them before, and also after these matters came to light why has it not taken any action? We speak to Priyanka Pulla, a Bangalore-based freelance science journalist, about how serious ANVISA’s allegations are and what it means for India.
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