India’s vaccination drive has been reliant on two ‘Made In India’ vaccines, which are Serum Institute of India’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin. While SII’s Covishield is developed by Oxford AstraZeneca, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin has been developed indigenously and has been India’s success story in the vaccination drive so far.
Since the Indian government granted approvals to Covaxin, a number of media houses, media persons and politicians have been busy peddling blatant falsehoods and misinformation against the indigenously developed vaccine that has proven its efficacy and is now approved by the WHO too.
Recently, Bharat Biotech had shared a list of recent media reports from Indian media outlets that have spread misinformation, and sometimes blatant lies to create confusion regarding the vaccine. The company ‘fact-checked’ those lies one by one.
Fake claims and misinformation by Moneycontrol
Bharat Biotech listed an article by Money Control dated 29 December 2021 that claimed Bharat Biotech’s ability to provide vaccine doses for 10 crore Indians in the 15-18 age group is doubtful.
Bharat Biotech stated that they have provided crores of doses in the last 11 months of the vaccination campaign and the vaccination drive for the 15-18 age group will also be carried out through several months.
Another statement in the article claimed that they had a ‘botched up’ attempt to revive the Haskins Veterinary Institute in Gujarat and their tech transfer efforts so far have been unsuccessful.
Bharat Biotech stated that they are carrying out tech transfer projects with 3 companies, one is already manufacturing and the company mentioned by Moneycontrol does not exist.
Further, Moneycontrol had claimed in a misleading statement that Bharat Biotech is one of the few companies that has experience of trials in the ’18 odd’ age group.
Bharat Biotech reminded them that they have been carrying out clinical trials on children in the 2-18 age group.
Fake statements and misinformation by Times of India
In a TOI article dated 25 December 2021, it was claimed that private hospitals in Bengaluru have over 5.5 lakh doses of Covaxin that are ‘expired’.
Bharat Biotech stated that they have data and the current number of ‘expired’ doses stands at less than 1 lakh.
False claims by Deccan Herald
In an article dated 5 January 2022, Deccan Herald had claimed that “the confidence of parents have been shaken by the low sample size of human clinical trials, and the confusion regarding extension of shelf life of the Covaxin doses’.
Bharat Biotech clarified that they have conducted clinical trials on over 26,000 people so far and their findings are published in internationally peer-reviewed journals. Further, the extension of shelf life has been granted by CDSCO in a very transparent manner after data on shelf life was submitted. The company has also communicated the same in the public domain and the government of India has granted shelf life extension to both Covishield and Covaxin based on data submitted by the respective companies.
The DH article further stated a blatant lie claiming that Bharat Biotech has taken back over 90% of the six lakh ‘expired-label’ doses in Bengaluru.
Bharat Biotech stated that the company maintains data on doses supplied and available and Bengaluru’s hospitals did not have six lakh ‘expired-label’ doses. The number was less than 1 lakh.
False claims by The Wire
The Wire, in an article on 29 December 2021 had claimed, “The virologist said currently there is currently no data available on the immune response generated by Covaxin.
Bharat Biotech stated that the data on the immune response generated by Covaxin has been published in several reputed international peer-reviewed journals through 2020 and 2021. The data on booster doses has been submitted to the authorities.
Covaxin Publications… #COVID19 #COVAXIN #BharatBiotech #publications #clinicaltrials pic.twitter.com/F8KyfQyLo6
— BharatBiotech (@BharatBiotech) December 30, 2021
The company stated that the above mentioned false statements by media outlets are just a few examples of the number of false claims and misinformation shared by many publications against their vaccine and company. They have added that they will continue to ‘fact-check’ the false claims.
They requested the media organisations to be responsible in their reportage, adding that news articles on medicine, science, vaccines and pharmaceuticals etc have to be based on actual scientific facts and data, not on ideological, political or financial leanings.
