The Union government on Tuesday said that it was speeding up emergency approvals for foreign-made vaccines that have been granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) in other countries amid alarming spike of Coronavirus infections across India. This is being done to expand the basket of vaccines for domestic use and hasten the pace and coverage of vaccination, according to an official statement from the government. 

Currently, three vaccines – Covaxin by Bharat Biotech, Covishield by Serum Institute of India and Sputnik by Dr Reddy’s – have received emergency approvals from the national regulator Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI). The DCGI granted permission for restricted emergency use of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V with certain conditions, the Union Health Ministry announced on Tuesday, while stating that Dr Reddy’s Laboratories will import the vaccine for use in the country. 

The approval came after the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) on Monday recommended granting approval to Sputnik V for restricted emergency use, subject to certain regulatory conditions. The matter of augmenting the basket of vaccines available for fighting the pandemic as well as to accelerate the pace and coverage of domestic vaccination programme was discussed at the 23^rd meeting of the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 held on April 11, chaired by Dr V K Paul, member (health) of the NITI Aayog.