After Covaxin phase-III results, Abhishek Singhvi asks vaccine haters to get vaccinated

After Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin published the results of its phase-III trials, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi on Sunday, July 5, took to his official Twitter handle and hit out at the people who speak against the vaccine. While hitting out at people, who are against the vaccine, Abhishek Singhvi said that instead of finding fault in the COVID-19 vaccine, they all should get vaccinated as soon as possible. "A huge outreach program is needed from the Centre and states to convince the uneducated population to get a COVID vaccine shit," he added. 

Phase-III results: Covaxin Clocks 77.8% Overall Efficacy

Bharat Biotech on Friday, July 2, published Covaxin's phase-3 trial data. Clocking an overall efficacy of 77.8%, Covaxin is 93.4% efficacious against severe symptomatic cases, 78% effective against mild and moderate cases and 63% effective on asymptomatic cases. The vaccine has also shown 65.2% efficacy against the Delta variant of COVID-19 with the vaccine being well tolerated with no clinically or statistically significant differences in serious adverse events. Covaxin has been tested on 25,800 volunteers across 25 trial sites on subjects ages 18-98 years - India's largest efficacy trial.

The Covaxin journey

Earlier in March, Bharat Biotech said that its COVID-19 vaccine - Covaxin - a Whole Virion Inactivated Corona Virus Vaccine - has shown an interim clinical efficacy of 81% in its Phase 3 trials. The phase 3 trials involved 25,800 subjects and is the largest ever trial conducted in India. Covaxin has been granted permission for restricted use in an emergency situation by the DGCI in January 3. Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan explained that COVAXIN is more likely to work against newer variants like N501Y Variant (UK variant) and the recent double mutation (Indian variant). The participants enrolled were between the age of 18-98 years old including 2,433 over the age of 60 and 4,500 with comorbidities. Amid heavy politicisation, the Centre roped in several PSUs to produce Covaxin and approved an advance payment of Rs 1500 crores to BBL to ramp up COVID-19 vaccine production.

BBL has informed that Covaxin will even undergo phase-4 trials to check the real-world effectiveness of the vaccines to meet every rigorous scientific standard for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality needed to support emergency use authorization. Centre has capped vaccine prices at Covishield Rs 780 per dose, Covaxin Rs 1,410 and Sputnik V Rs 1,145, while vaccines are provided free of cost at govt centres from June 21 as Covaxin is supplied to Centre at Rs 150. India has ordered an additional 19 crore Covaxin doses till September 2021, while Covaxin awaits WHO's approval.