Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla on Monday mentioned the enterprise was in discussions with the Indian government to expedite the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use in India. He mentioned the application had been submitted months ago.
“Pfizer is aware that access to vaccines is critical to ending this pandemic. Unfortunately, our vaccine is not registered in India,” Bourla mentioned.
Bourla also announced Pfizer was rushing shipments of its medicines valued at more than $70 million which have been identified by the Indian government as portion of its Covid therapy protocol and consists of steroid medication to lessen inflammation, anti-coagulants to avert blood clotting and antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections.
Pfizer had in April supplied a ‘not-for-profit’ value for its vaccine for the Indian government’s immunisation programme.
The Indian government has permitted the emergency use approval of the imported vaccines in India which have been granted emergency approval for restricted use by regulators in the US, the EU, the UK, Japan and WHO.
Expressing concern about the essential Covid-19 predicament in India with the highest prices of infection and hospitalisation and the have to have the treat these who are suffering in hospitals, Bourla mentioned the medicines had been getting rushed from Pfizer’s distribution centres in the US, Europe and Asia more than the next 90 days.
The Pfizer chairman additional mentioned they would be working with the government and NGO partners to take these medicines, that are getting donated, to public hospitals across the nation free of charge of charge.
The Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine has been authorised for emergency use by the USFDA beneath an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to avert Coronavirus Disease 2019 for use in men and women 16 years of age and older. The Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is a messenger RNA vaccine that has each synthetic and enzymatically made elements from naturally occurring substances such as proteins. The vaccine does not include any live virus.
According to Pfizer, the vaccine effectiveness was at least 97% against symptomatic Covid-19 instances, hospitalisations, serious and essential hospitalisations, and deaths. Vaccine effectiveness was 94% in case of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections.