New Delhi, Apr 3 (PTI) Amid rising coronavirus cases, the Serum Institute of India has written a letter to the Union health ministry seeking the inclusion of its COVID-19 vaccine Covovax on the CoWIN portal as a heterologous booster dose for adults, official sources said on Monday.

The letter was written by Prakash Kumar Singh, Director, Serum Institute of India (SII) on March 27, they said.

Also Read | Rahul Gandhi Gets Bail in 2019 Defamation Case, Says This Is a Fight Against 'Mitrkaal' To Save Democracy and Truth.

Last month, COVID-19 Working Group headed by Dr N K Arora had also recommended to the health ministry inclusion of Covovax on the CoWIN portal as a heterologous booster dose for adults who have been vaccinated with two doses of either Covishield or Covaxin.

The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had on January 16 approved the market authorisation for Covovax for those who have been administered two doses of either Covishield or Covaxin. Also, Covovax has been approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA).

Also Read | German Village Elects Syrian Refugee as Mayor.

The DCGI had approved Covovax for restricted use in emergency situations in adults on December 28, 2021, in the 12-17 age group on March 9, 2022, and in the 7-11 age group on June 28, 2022, subject to certain conditions.

Covovax is manufactured through technology transfer from US-based vaccine maker Novavax. It has been approved by the European Medicines Agency for conditional marketing authorisation. It was granted emergency-use listing by WHO on December 17, 2021.

In August 2020, Novavax Inc. had announced a licence agreement with the SII for the development and commercialisation of NVX-CoV2373, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in India, and low and middle-income countries.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)