Pfizer Withdraw Vaccine Application in India

Pfizer have boasted that their Covid vaccine developed with Germany’s BioNTech had shown an overall efficacy rate of 95% with no vaccine-related, serious safety concerns. 

That’s of course their claim but on Friday, it was reported that they have withdrawn an application for emergency-use authorization of the said vaccine in India.

But according to Reuters, India’s Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation had declined to accept Pfizer’s request for approval without a local trial on the vaccine’s safety and immunogenicity for Indians. It appears Indian health officials generally ask for so-called bridging trials to determine if a vaccine is safe and generates an immune response in its citizens whose genetic makeup can be different from people in Western nations. 

India is being cautious – and I reckon that’s a good thing! 

FYI, in January, the country has given consent to two other vaccines – one from AstraZeneca-Oxford University and another developed at home by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research.