BJP takes swipe at Congress over Covaxin efficacy data, says everyone should be proud of result

New Delhi, Mar 04: A day after Bharat Biotech said its anti-coronavirus vaccine has shown 81 per cent efficacy, the BJP on Thursday hit out at the Congress for questioning the drug regulator's decision to grant it emergency use approval and said everyone should be proud of the results shown by it.

Taking a jibe at the Congress, BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia claimed the Gandhi family would have been the first to get a vaccine if the Congress party was in power. The Narendra Modi government ended the VIP culture and ensured that healthcare and frontline workers will be the first to get the jab, he said.

Bhatia said no one will forget how senior Congress leaders such as Shashi Tharoor and Jairam Ramesh had questioned the indigenously developed vaccine Covaxin. After the drugs regulator approved Covaxin for restricted emergency use in the country in January, some senior Congress leaders had criticised the move noting that it was given the nod without phase three trial data.

The Congress government in Chhattisgarh even demanded that Covaxin should not be sent to the state, Bhatia noted and then lauded opposition leaders like Sharad Pawar and Naveen Patnaik for taking Covid vaccine and not doing politics over the issue. "They gave the message that there should be no politics over some issues," he said.

Bharat Biotech's Covaxin vaccine, whose emergency use approval before finishing final stage testing had triggered a row, has shown an 81 per cent efficacy in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 disease in an interim analysis of the advanced clinical trial, the company said on Wednesday, boosting prospects of its usage.