Hyderabad, Dec 20 (IANS): An opened vial of Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin can be stored at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for up to 28 days and is not required to be discarded immediately in a day or at the end of immunisation session, Bharat Biotech said on Monday.

Each vial of Covaxin contains 20 doses. The vaccine is approved for use under the 28-day multi-dose vial policy from Drugs Controller General of India and the WHO Emergency Use Listing (WHO EUL).

"We believe in doing our bit to care for our environment, the multi-dose vial policy saves money for procurement agencies by reducing the cold chain logistics and management. Thereby reducing the carbon footprint, costs related to open vial wastage, cold chain distribution, cold chain storage, biomedical waste disposal etc," the Hyderabad-based company said in a statement.

"We believe in being environmentally friendly by reducing the quantum of packing materials and single-use plastics that are utilised in vaccines manufacturing, storage, distribution and disposal," it added.

The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) last month approved the extension of Covaxin's shelf life up to 12 months from the date of manufacture.

This approval of shelf-life extension is based on the availability of additional stability data, which was submitted to the CDSCO. With the shelf-life extension, hospitals can now utilise the stock which was nearing the expiry and avoid vaccine wastage, the vaccine-maker said.