India’s Covid-19 vaccine Covovax available for everyone above age of 12 years: Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla

New Delhi: Serum Institute of India's (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla on Wednesday (May 4, 2022) said that Covid-19 vaccine Covovax is available for everyone above the age of 12 years. 

"A lot of you have asked if Covovax is available for adults. The answer is yes, it is available for everyone above the age of 12," Poonawalla tweeted.

A lot of you have asked if Covovax is available for adults. The answer is yes, it is available for everyone above the age of 12. — Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) May 4, 2022

Adar Poonawalla tweeted this clarification over Covovax a day after it was announced that it is now available for children in India.

Earlier, on Tuesday, SII CEO had informed that Covovax (Novavax) is now available for children in India.

"Covovax (Novavax), is now available for children in India. This is the only vaccine manufactured in India that is also sold in Europe and has an efficacy of 90 per cent. This is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of providing yet another vaccine to protect our children," he said in a tweet.

The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) approved the SII`s Covovax Covid-19 vaccine for the age group 12-17 last week. 

Last year in December, the government cleared Covovax for restricted use in an emergency situation.

Availability of Covovax

On the other hands, several users took it to Twitter to complain about the availability of the Covovax. Twitterati complained that the Covovax option is not available on CoWIN app for 18 + vaccine beneficiaries. "The Cowin doesn`t make Covovax an option if 18 and above tab is selected. Hopefully, that will be looked into," a user said.

While, another user posted a screenshot of CoWIN app and said, "Check this out, when we select 18 & above option in CoWIN app, automatically Covovax option gets faded i.e disabled while 4 other options are highlighted i.e Covishield, Covaxin, Sputnik, ZyCov-D."

Vaccination of minors in India

It may be noted that the Covid-19 vaccination for minors, in age group of 15-18 years, strated from January 3 in India. Children in the 15-18 age group are being administered Bharat Biotech's Covaxin at government vaccination centres, however, the country has also started inoculating children aged 12 to 14 years with Biological E's intramuscular vaccine Corbevax. 

India Covid-19 cases

Meanwhile, India reported 3,205 new coronavirus infections in a day, pushing the number of active cases to 19,509 and the overall tally to 4,30,88,118, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated Wednesday.

The data released at 8 am also showed that 31 fatalities were reported in a 24-hour span, taking the overall death toll to 5,23,920. An increase of 372 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload which now stand at 19,509, according to the data.

(With agency inputs)