Health Ministry refutes claim on calf serum in Covaxin

The Union Health Ministry has reacted strongly against social media posts that claimed Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin contains calf serum, stressing that “facts have been twisted and misrepresented”.

“There have been some social media posts regarding composition of the Covaxin vaccine where it has been suggested that Covaxin vaccine contains the newborn calf serum. Facts have been twisted and misrepresented in these posts,” the Union Health Ministry said.

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The clarification comes after Congress leader Gaurav Pandhi tweeted that the government has admitted Covaxin consists newborn calf serum. “In an RTI response, the Modi Govt has admitted that COVAXIN consists Newborn Calf Serum …..which is a portion of clotted blood obtained from less than 20 days young cow-calves, after slaughtering them. This is heinous! This information should have been made public before,” Pandhi said in a tweet.

The ministry clarified that the newborn calf serum is used only for the preparation and growth of vero cells, adding that this technique has been used for decades in polio, rabies, and influenza vaccines.

“Different kinds of bovine and other animal serum are standard enrichment ingredient used globally for vero cell growth. Vero cells are used to establish cell lives which help in production of vaccines,” it added.

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The ministry further explained that the vero cells, after the growth, are washed with water and chemicals, also technically known as buffer, several times to make it free from the newborn calf serum. “Thereafter, these vero cells are infected with corona virus for viral growth,” it said.

“The vero cells are completely destroyed in the process of viral growth. Thereafter this grown virus is also killed (inactivated) and purified. This killed virus is then used to make the final vaccine, and in the final vaccine formulation, no calf serum is used. Hence, the final vaccine (Covaxin) does not contain newborn calf serum at all and the calf serum is not an ingredient of the final vaccine product,” the ministry said.