New Delhi: The much-awaited approval from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech's COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin is expected this week, reported news agency ANI quoting sources.
Covaxin has been on the pipeline for approval since July, after the manufacturer submitted all of the documentation needed for WHO's EUL on July 9.
"All documents required for EUL of Covaxin have been submitted to WHO as of July 9. The review process has now commenced with the expectation that we will receive EUL from WHO at the earliest," Dr Krishna Ella, chairman and managing director of Bharat Biotech, had said on Twitter.
The WHO has so far approved Covid vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, US pharma majors Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, China's Sinopharm and Oxford-AstraZeneca for emergency use.
Covaxin is one of the six vaccines that have received emergency use authorisation from India's drug regulator and is being used in the nationwide inoculation programme, along with Covishield and Sputnik V.
"The WHO approval for Covaxin is likely this month," an official source said.
Ease of international travel for Indians and export of the vaccine will be some of the benefits of a WHO approval to Bharat Biotech's Covid-19 vaccine dubbed Covaxin.
The Centre had told Rajya Sabha in July that all documents required for the WHO's Emergency Use Listing (EUL) have been submitted by Bharat Biotech as of July 9, and the global health body had commenced the review process.