COVID-19 vaccine Zalika is registered in Brazil

Brazil’s drug watchdog Anvisa has granted definitive registration to a new vaccine against COVID-19, named Zalika. The jab is manufactured by India’s Serum Institute and the application for registration was made by the Brazilian company Zalika Farmacêutica.

In a statement, the authority reported the vaccine showed efficacy in the phase-3 study, the last stage before approval, with a variation between 79.5 percent (in a study conducted in the US in people aged 12–17) and 90.4 percent, in a study in the US and Mexico carried out with adults.

Zalika is the sixth inoculation to be granted final individual registration. In addition to the six existing ones, CoronaVac (from Butantan) is also authorized in Brazil, but for emergency use only.

The shot is described as monovalent for the original SarsCov-2 virus and is not yet capable of immunizing against the XBB 1.5 variant, according to the current recommendation by the World Health Organization, which is why it will still be updated this year, in order to comply with a term signed by Anvisa and the pharmaceutical company.

To be incorporated into the federal government’s national immunization plan, Zalika will still need to undergo an evaluation by the Ministry of Health.