new delhi serum institute of india has written to the union health ministry seeking the inclusion of its covid vaccine covovax in the cowin portal as a heterologous booster dose for adults official sources said on wednesdaythe letter was written by prakash kumar singh director government and regulatory affairs at serum institute of india sii they saidthe drug controller general of india dcgi on january 16 approved market authorisation for covovax as a heterologous booster dose for adults who have been administered two doses of either covishield or covaxinthe dcgis approval was based on recommendations by the subject expert committee sec of the central drugs standard control organisationthe dcgi approved covovax for restricted use in emergency situations in adults on december 28 2021 in the 1217 age group on march 9 2022 and also in children aged seven to 11 years on june 28 last year subject to certain conditionscovovax is manufactured through technology transfer from novavaxit has been approved by the european medicines agency for conditional marketing authorization and was granted emergencyuse listing by the world health organization who on december 17 2021in august 2020 usbased vaccine maker novavax inc had earlier announced a licence agreement with the sii for the development and commercialization of nvxcov2373 its covid19 vaccine candidate in india and lowandmiddleincome countries