COVID-19 Vaccine | Corbevax gets DCGI nod for emergency use in 12-18 year olds

The development comes even as the government is yet to decide on the expansion of the ongoing national immunisation campaign against coronavirus for kids and adolescents under 15 years.

Sumi Sukanya Dutta

February 21, 2022 / 19:29 IST

Representative image: Reuters

The Drug Controller General of India on February 21 gave emergency use approval to Biological E’s coronavirus vaccine Corbevax for use on children aged 15 years and above.

Nearly two months after Corbevax, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Hyderabad-based Biological E was approved for adults in the country, the vaccine has now received regulatory approvals for administration in the 12-18-year age group.

The company said in a statement on February 21 that it has received approval from the Drug Controller General of India for restricted use in an emergency situation in adolescents aged 12 to less than 18 years based on interim results of the ongoing phase 2, 3 clinical studies.

This comes nearly a week after the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation’s subject expert committee on COVID-19 had recommended the receptor-binding domain (RBD) protein subunit vaccine for administration in adolescents.

The development comes even as the government is yet to decide on the expansion of the ongoing national immunisation campaign against coronavirus for kids and adolescents under 15 years.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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