NEW DELHI: Amid an acute shortage of vaccines in some parts of the country and a record surge in covid cases the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) today approved the of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories seeking emergency use authorisation for Sputnik V Vaccine, adding a third vaccine to the existing two. 

The approval comes on the day when India has reported 168,912 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours period, and overtaken Brazil to become the second worst-infected country after the United States with a total Active Caseload of  12,01,009 positive cases.

The final decision is likely to be taken by the Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI) soon and when approved, Sputnik V will be the third COVID-19 vaccine to be available in India after Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech's respective vaccines – Covishield and Covaxin.

Dr Reddy's partnered with the Russian Direct Investment Fund to conduct clinical trials of Sputnik V and for its distribution rights in India in September 2020. The vaccine which would be imported from Russia for emergency use in the country has demonstrated an efficacy rate of 91.6 per cent in the interim analysis of the phase 3 clinical trial, which included data on 19,866 volunteers in Russia.

Sputnik V, is an adenovirus-based vaccine and shares its name with the world’s first artificial satellite made by Russia. It is being used by Moscow for mass vaccination and has also been approved in 59 countries with a total population of over 1.5 billion people. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that one of his daughters had already had two doses of the vaccine.