US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer told the Indian government on Wednesday that their Covid-19 vaccine can be administered to everyone aged 12 and above, and can also be stored at 2-8 degree temperature for a month.
Seeking fast-track approval for its Covid-19 vaccine, Pfizer has told Indian authorities that the vaccine has shown “high effectiveness” against the novel coronavirus variant prevalent in India, and on people of Indian ethnicity or nationality.
The initial advisory had suggested that Pfizer vaccines should be stored at a temperature of minus 70 degree celsius, which was considered to be almost impossible for tropical countries with underfunded cold storage infrastructure, but the company has since revised the advisory and the vaccines can now be stored at minus 25 degrees and even at 2-8 degrees for a month.
The Pfizer vaccine which was created in collaboration with German biotechnology firm BioNTech is the only vaccine currently being administered to children in some countries. US health regulator rolled out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children between the ages of 12-15 on May 14, Canada had approved their shot for children on May 5. The European Medicines Agency is also evaluating its use in children.
Pfizer is willing to export five crore vaccine doses over the course of four months, starting with one crore vaccine doses in July, one in August, two crore in September and finally another one crore in October. The manufacturer has agreed to hold talks with the Government of India and accept payments directly from them. Earlier, both Pfizer and Moderna had refused to sell vaccines directly to states.
It has said that 26 per cent of participants overall in the recent observational study by Public Health England (PHE) in the United Kingdom were of “Indian or British Indian” 26% in UK study that showed high effectiveness were of Indian ethnicity, Pfizer tells govt ethnicity. This study, which was concluded on May 22, reported a high vaccine effectiveness of 87.9 per cent against the B.1.617.2 variant, which is most reported in India.
The 26 per cent Indian or British Indian study participants included Bangladeshis (1.4 per cent), Pakistanis (5.9 per cent) and those from any other Asian background (5.7 per cent), indicating that the observed vaccine effectiveness applies to these groups as well.
