India pushing Bangladesh to conduct Covaxin clinical trial

India has been pushing Bangladesh to conduct the clinical trial of India’s Covaxin, jointly developed by Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

On July 18, Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC) approved the trials of Covaxin in the country.

BMRC chairman Syed Modasser Ali, the former health adviser to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, signed off on the move reports Hindustan Times citing New Delhi and Dhaka officials related to the development.

“Bangladesh has not much interest in Covaxin as the country has signed agreements with China for 30 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine and is set to ink a separate deal for millions of doses of Russia’s Sputnik V,” the officials said.

Dhaka is also upset over the inability of India’s Serum Institute to deliver 30 million doses of the Covishield vaccine under a contract signed in November last year.

Vaccine exports from India were halted in April amid a devastating second wave of infections. Under the agreement with SII, Bangladesh was to get five million doses each month from January to June 2021.

Bangladesh is one of five countries (the others are Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Pakistan) that are part of the China-led China South Asian Countries Emergency Supplies Reserve and the Poverty Alleviation and Cooperative Development Centre, both formed earlier this month. The first is expected to make vaccines easily available to its members.

The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech released data this month from the final analysis of Covaxin and said that the vaccine demonstrated overall efficacy of 77.8% against symptomatic infection.

It added that Covaxin has now received emergency use authorizations in 16 countries including, Brazil, India, Philippines, Iran, Mexico, etc. with EUA’s in process in 50 countries worldwide. The company is in discussions with WHO to obtain emergency Use Listing for COVAXIN, it noted.