Indian pharmaceutical company Cipla has been granted emergency use authorization from the country’s drugs regulator to import the Moderna vaccine.
Dr. V.K. Paul, the head of India’s COVID-19 task force, says the Mumbai-based Cipla must submit a safety assessment of the vaccine before rolling it out for a large-scale immunization program.
Moderna will be the fourth vaccine administered in India after AstraZeneca’s Covishield, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Russia’s Sputnik V.
Paul says the Indian government is expected to close a deal with Pfizer soon. India, with nearly 1.4 billion people, has administered both doses of vaccines to less than 5% of its population.
