The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) gave conditional emergency approval to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, being manufactured by Serum Institute (SII) here as ‘Covishield’, and 'emergency restricted use in emergency situation in public interest' to Bharat Biotech's Covaxin on Sunday, January 3.

This makes them the first COVID vaccines in the country to get such authorisation.

India is the second in the world to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine after the United Kingdom, where the Pfizer-BioNTech candidate had already first received the approval in December 2020.

Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is indigenously made in collaboration with the pharma major, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV).

For instance, the Pfizer vaccine has also received approval in the United States, Bahrain and Canada, while the vaccine candidate developed by Moderna has been approved in the US.

Different Delivery Mechanisms, Different Efficacies

As vaccines begin to be rolled out after due evaluation by regulators - here’s a look at the key candidates and how they differ from each other on the basis of type, efficacy, regimen and storage requirements.

The World Health Organisation granted ‘emergency use validation’ to the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on 1 January, which is also under review by the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) for emergency use in India.