The South American nation of Guyana is the latest to recognise Covaxin, India’s first indigenous vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), the Indian high commission to the country announced on Tuesday.
Taking to Twitter, the high commission, based in the capital city of Georgetown, described this is an ‘important step’ in ties between the two countries.
Guyana, which has a population of just over 700,00 and which is the only country in South America with English as official language, earlier recognised the following Covid-19 vaccines: Oxford-AstraZeneca, Sputnik V, Sinopharm, Sinovac, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Jansen. According to the country’s guidelines, a person is ‘vaccinated’ if they have taken at least one dose of any of the aforementioned jabs.
In recent days, countries such as Australia and Oman have added Covaxin to their respective lists of approved vaccines. Other nations, which have approved the Bharat Biotech International Limited-developed vaccine include Mauritius, Philippines, Nepal, Mexico, Iran, Sri Lanka, Greece, Estonia and Zimbabwe.
Covaxin is among six jabs granted emergency use authorisation (EUA) in India for the nationwide inoculation drive, which began on January 16.
On November 3, the WHO will hold a review meeting to discuss granting emergency use listing (EUL) to Covaxin. Members of the global health body’s technical advisory group (TAG) met on October 26 to discuss the issue, but concluded that more clarifications were required from Bharat Biotech
.