Serum Institute of India's 'Covishield', developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, was recommended for emergency use in India by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation earlier and has now been approved by a panel of experts appointed by the government.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar informed that the vaccine had been approved on Friday, paving way for hope in the vaccine department in the country after months of uncertainty. Javadekar also said that at least three more vaccines are waiting for approval. "India is perhaps the only country where at least four vaccines are getting ready. One was approved yesterday for emergency use, Serum's Covishield" the minister said. The approval comes three days after regulators in the United Kingdom approved the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for their citizens. SII has stated that it has stockpiled over 50 million doses of Covishield and is adding more doses to the pile every week. Meanwhile, a nationwide dry run to assess the preparedness for the vaccination process is scheduled today (January 2).

India has registered as many as 19,078 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of positive cases in the country to 1,03,05,788. Approximately 2.5 lakh cases are active while over 99 lakh people have recovered from the infection. With 224 new deaths, the country has recorded 1,49,218 deaths in total.