NTAGI likely to consider allowing Corbevax as booster for Covishield-19 vaccines

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NTAGI likely to consider allowing Corbevax as booster for Covishield-19 vaccines

The NTAGI, which is scheduled to meet on Tuesday, is likely to consider allowing Biological E's Corbevax as a booster for those fully vaccinated against COVID 19 with either Covishield or Covaxin.

The Drugs Controller General of India DCGI on June 4 approved Corbevax as a precaution for those aged 18 and above. India's first indigenously-developed RBD protein subunit vaccine, Corbevax, is currently being used to inoculate children in the age group of 12 to 14 years.

A source told PTI that the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization NTAGI will discuss allowing Corbevax, which has been cleared by the DCGI, as a booster for those fully vaccinated with Covishield or Covaxin.

The government advisory panel is expected to examine the trial data of the country's first quadrivalent human papillomaviruses qHPV vaccine against cervical cancer, developed by the Serum Institute of India.

Sources said that a separate HPV working group of the NTAGI had examined the vaccine's clinical trial data and usefulness for inclusion in the national immunisation programme on June 8.

The recommendation of the Standing Technical Sub-Committee STSC of the NTAGI on reducing the gap between the second dose and the precaution dose of Covid vaccines from nine to six months may also be ratified by the Union health secretary.