Health Minister Harsh Vardhan has said India may not require Pfizer vaccine, which has attained 95% efficacy during the interim analysis of limited COVID-19 trial participants. He said other ongoing vaccine trials in the country have shown promising results.

Previous reports had come out that the U.S pharmaceutical conglomerate Pfizer was in discussion with the Centre to sell its coronavirus vaccine candidate in the country. Recently, Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech claimed that their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine viz BNT162b2, was also found to be more than 90% effective in preventing coronavirus.

IN this perspective Vardhan said it made no sense to consider Pfizer as the pharma major is yet to get approval in the US. After the requisite approvals, the US pharma major will have to cater to needs of its own country's population first, he said.

Remarkably, India has five vaccine candidates in different stages of trials at present,. Three of these five are in the advanced stages of 2/3 phase trials. Serum Institute of India (SII) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) have already announced the completion of enrolment for phase 3 clinical trials of its Covishield vaccine.

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