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'Single-minded focus on safety': Bharat Biotech affirms Covaxin safety amid AstraZeneca row

By Team Asianet NewsableFirst Published May 2, 2024, 8:30 PM IST
Highlights

Bharat Biotech said all the studies and safety follow-up activities demonstrated "excellent safety record, without any vaccine-associated incidents of blood clots, thrombocytopenia, TTS, VITT, pericarditis, myocarditis, etc"
 

Amid a debate over AstraZeneca's admission that its Covid-19 vaccine, sold as Covishield in India, could cause "rare" side effects, Bharat Biotech, the vaccine maker that developed Covaxin, boasted about its safety record.

In a statement posted on its X account, Bharat Biotech stated that Covaxin was created with a single-minded emphasis on safety first, then efficacy. The vaccine manufacturer further said that Covaxin was the only Covid-19 vaccine in the government's Covid-19 immunisation scheme that had undergone effectiveness testing in India.

announcement - was developed with a single-minded focus on first, followed by . pic.twitter.com/DgO2hfKu4y

— Bharat Biotech (@BharatBiotech)

"Covaxin was examined in over 27,000 participants as part of the licensing procedure. It was licensed for restricted usage in clinical trials, with thorough safety reporting for several hundred thousand patients," Bharat Biotech stated. The safety of Covaxin was also assessed by the Ministry of Health, Government of India. "Ongoing safety monitoring (pharmacovigilance) was maintained throughout Covaxin's product life cycle," it said.

The business stated that research and follow-up efforts revealed Covaxin's "excellent safety record" and that there were no reports of vaccine-related problems such as blood clots, thrombocytopenia, pericarditis, or myocarditis.

Recently, AstraZeneca admitted for the first time in court documents that its Covid-19 vaccine, in "very rare cases", could cause a blood clot-related side effect.  The AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine was sold globally under the brand names Covishield and Vaxzevria among others. The AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), was marketed in India as Covishield. The lawsuit was initiated by Jamie Scott, who suffered a permanent brain injury after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine in April 2021.

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