Indian sub-continent has 8 vaccine candidates in vaccination fray. The candidates are AstraZeneca and Oxford university developed and Serum Institute of India manufactured Covishield, Covaxin by Bharat Biotech Limited, ZyCoV-D by Zydus Cadila, Russian vaccine candidate Sputnik-V, NVX-CoV2373 by SIIH, GCO19 by Geneva, Two unlabeled vaccines Recombinant Protein Antigen based vaccine by Biological E Limited and Inactivated rabies vector platform by Bharat Biotech. 

Few reasons why we can say India to roll out vaccine soon:

- The first five vaccine candidates have entered either phase II or phase III clinical trials, the latter three are in pre-clinical trial phases. 

- Two vaccines candidates, Covishield and Covaxin  are in the third stage of clinical trials.

- Three vaccines have applied for emergency use authorisation to the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI). Their application is pending for the committee review which is expected to happen on Wednesday by the subject expert committee (SEC) for the vaccines.

- The application for the emergency use authorisation (EUA) of Covaxina and Covishied has followed after Pfizer's BNT162b2 which was the first vaccine candidate to seek the EUA. 

- Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan informed that few of the vaccine candidates may receive licenses for authorisation in the next few weeks. 

- Pfizer India had submitted an application on December 4 to the DCGI seeking emergency use authorisation (EUA) for its Covid-19 vaccine in India. 

- Serum institute also has filed for the EUA while the Bharat Biotech's applied for the same on Monday. 

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Pfizer, Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech applied for emergency use approval