The precautionary doses of COVID-19 vaccines rolled out by PM Modi on January 10, 2022, were not approved by the Central Drug Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO).
The nodal drug agency of the Central government is yet to approve the precautionary vaccine. In a press conference held in December 2021, the top leadership overseeing the vaccination process including Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) director-general Balram Bhargava and COVID-19 task force chief Vinod K. Paul were averse to rolling out the booster shot.
On December 25 2021, PM Modi announced that the booster shots will be rolled out for the general public, the decision caught CDSCO off guard . The Wire Science filed a total of six applications under the Right to Information Act to understand the issue.
These applications were sent from one government office to the other. However on June 7, 2022 CDSCO replied to to an RTI application saying, “CDSCO has not approved precautionary dose of Covishield and Covaxin for those who have taken primary dose of Covishield and Covaxin.”
In a reply to a first appeal, the CDSCO said, “The CDSCO has not received [in the first place] any application for the approval for [the] precautionary dose of Covishield and Covaxin.”
This means that the scientific body did not receive any application for apperoval of the booster doses before Modi launched them in January this year.