US leaders write to Biden to support India-made vaccines

Ten United States Congress representatives, led by members of the Hispanic Caucus, have written to President Joe Biden to champion two vaccines, Corbevax and Novavax – developed with American expertise and produced at scale in India – and deepen the administration’s partnership with like-minded countries to ensure their equitable distribution globally.

Led by three Democratic representatives from Texas – Veronica Escobar, Vicente Gonzalez and Sylvia R Garcia – the letter was signed by seven other representatives from California, Florida and Guam, including Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna.

In their appeal to Biden, the leaders pointed out the grave disparity that exists in access to vaccines. Although 61.3% of the world’s population had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 10.16 billion doses had been administered globally, they said they were “critically concerned” that in low-income countries, only 10% of people had received at least one dose.

In this backdrop, they flagged two vaccines. “First, the scientists at the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Baylor College of Medicine have developed the CORBEVAX vaccine, using technology that has been rigorously tested for decades,” they said in the letter.

The vaccine recently received authorization in India, and Indian vaccine manufacturer Biological E was now producing 100 million doses every month and has sold 300 million doses to the Indian government, the representatives said.

“India is a shining example of the immense international potential CORBEVAX holds for low- and middle-income countries,” they said. “We continue to ask the federal government and G7 nations for assistance to co-develop this recombinant protein vaccine with new partners in low-resource countries and should CORBEVAX file domestically, we urge the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consider reviewing the vaccine for emergency use authorization.”

They also urged the administration to back the use of Corbevax globally and said any delay would jeopardize millions of lives.

In a recent piece in the Houston Chronicle, India’s ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, had noted how US institutions and Indian vaccine companies had closely cooperated to develop reliable and affordable vaccines, and singled out Corbevax as cost-effective and patent-free.

The Congress representatives also flagged the importance of the vaccine developed by scientists at the Maryland-based pharmaceutical company Novavax, which has recently filed for approval in the US.

“The Novavax vaccine has shown an overall efficacy of 90% in clinical trials. Two Phase-3 trials with 30,000 participants were conducted in the US and Mexico. Additionally, a trial with almost 15,000 participants was conducted in the UK. To date, Novavax has received conditional approval authorization from the European Union and Emergency Use Listing from the World Health Organization,” they said.

“It has also received authorization in India, and its two-dose vaccine is already being distributed in Indonesia,” the leaders said. “This vaccine has also been given the Emergency Use Approval of the WHO in December 2021.”

The Novavax vaccine is being manufactured by Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker by volume, under the brand name Covovax.

Since Corbevax was not held back by “constraints of intellectual property”, and the vaccine developed by Novovax is already in production in India, with exports planned to the global Covax facility, the representatives in the Congress said, “We think the United States has the opportunity to champion these vaccines created by American expertise for countries where vaccine inequality is taking its toll on some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

“To this end, the US can partner with like-minded countries to ensure an equitable distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine,” the Congress representatives said. “We request the White House consider the use of these vaccines in partnership countries across the globe, in a manner similar to the QUAD vaccine initiative and ensure an equitable distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine.” (Source:hindustantimes.com)

Image courtesy of thesatimes

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