Enriching Armoury against Covid-19

CEO of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla stated that their Covovax vaccine will be approved as a COVID-19
Booster dose in the next 10 to 15 days. He further said that the vaccine is highly effective against the Omicron
variants of coronavirus.
Covovax is the indigenous version of a Covid vaccine developed by Novovax Inc of USA and is being
manufactured by the Serum Institute of India under a licence from Novovax Inc. It is a recombinant protein vaccine
that uses spike proteins to acquaint the human body with how to develop immunity against SARS-CoV-2.
With the World Health Organization (WHO) granting Covovax emergency approval, a top Indian government
scientist has recommended that it be used as a booster shot to combat the emerging omicron variant of coronavirus.
Covovax “induces a strong immune response and has an excellent safety profile,” according to Anurag Agrawal,
one of the directors of the government's genome sequencing monitoring agency INSACOG (Indian SARS-CoV-2
Genomics Consortium).
An expert panel of the Central Drugs Regulatory Authority is expected to decide whether to market SII's
COVID-19 vaccine Covovax as a heterologous booster dose for adults who have received two doses of
Covishield or Covaxin. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organization's (CDSCO) Subject Expert Committee
was scheduled to meet on January 11. However, what was the outcome of the meeting is not yet known.
In light of the escalating pandemic situation in some countries, Prakash Kumar Singh, Director of Government
and Regulatory Affairs at the Serum Institute of India (SII), recently wrote a letter to the Drugs Controller General
of India (DCGI) requesting approval for Covovax as a heterologous booster dose for adults. Covovax was
approved by the DCGI for limited use in emergency situations for adults on December 28, 2021, for those aged
12-17 on March 9, 2022, and for children aged 7 to 11 on June 28, 2022, subject to certain conditions.
The SII manufactures Covovax using technology transferred from Novavax. The European Medicines Agency
has granted it conditional marketing authorization. On December 17, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO)
granted it emergency-use status. Novavax Inc., based in the United States, announced a licence agreement with
the SII in August 2020 for the development and commercialization of NVX-CoV2373, its COVID-19 vaccine
candidate, in India and low-and-middle-income countries.
SII also produces the Covishield vaccine, which has been widely used in the Indian vaccination campaign.
How does Covovax function?
When nanoparticles are injected into the body, they attract the body's immune cells, forcing them to respond quickly and
strongly. The nanoparticles are then carried by antigen-presenting cells, which rip the spike protein apart and display the fragments
on their surface. This activates the body's B cells, which begin to produce antibodies. When a real virus attempts to infect the system,
the newly generated antibodies ‘remember' the virus's spike protein and become activated.