Covaxin: Human trials of India’s first coronavirus vaccine to begin today

at 12:22 pm
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New Delhi (NVI): India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine, Covaxin, has got a nod from the AIIMS Ethics Committee to begin human trials from today.

All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Delhi, is among the 12 sites selected by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) for conducting phase I and II human trials of Covaxin.

In phase I, the vaccine would be tested on 375 volunteers and a maximum of 100 of them would be from AIIMS.

Healthy volunteers having no co-morbid conditions and without a history of COVID-19, aged more than 18 years and less than 55 years, would be eligible to participate in the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.

AIIMS will start the screening of the individuals and evaluate their health condition from today onwards before vaccinating them.

The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech company in collaboration with the ICMR and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), had recently got the nod for human clinical trials from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI).

-CHK