New Delhi: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences(AIIMS) Ethics Committee has given its approval for carrying out the human clinical trials of India’s potential indigenous covid-19 vaccine, covaxin. The trials will be conducted on 100 volunteers aged between 18 and 55 from Monday at AIIMS Delhi.
“Today, we got approval from AIIMS Ethics Committee for starting the human clinical trial of the indigenously developed Covaxin. We are launching the enrollment process from Monday. We are going to select healthy participants with no comorbidities and without a history of COVID-19. The age group of the study population is 18 to 55 years. This would be a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial,” ANI quoted Dr Sanjay Rai, Professor at the Centre for Community Medicine at AIIMS, as saying.
Covaxin has been developed by Bharat Biotech along with the Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology(NIV). The first phase clinical trial of the vaccine has begun from July 15 on 375 volunteers across the country. The country’s drug regulator has already given a green signal for human trials, after vaccine’s promising results shown on guinea pigs and mice.
AIIMS Delhi has also set up a dedicated email and phone number for the volunteers to register themselves for the trials. Before giving the vaccination, proper health screening of the volunteers will be performed.
Notably, covaxin trials are being carried out at 12 places across the nation. Trials have already started at AIIMS Patna and a few other places.
Bharat Biotech has envisaged to launch the vaccine for public health use by 15th August after completing all the mandatory clinical trials. The company is a worldwide supplier of four billion doses of infections like rotavirus, hepatitis, zika, Japanese encephalitis and others.
Covaxin is one of the seven vaccines that have been developed across the nation to find the cure of novel coronavirus which has claimed hundred of thousands lives worldwide.