Earlier this month on 2 July, ICMR had confirmed that India’s first indigenous coronavirus vaccine is ready for human trials. ICMR has partnered with Bharat Biotech International Limited to develop India’s first indigenous coronavirus vaccine named “Covaxin.” According to ICMR, the vaccine will be ready to battle coronavirus by 15 August 2020.
The BBV 152 COVID vaccine or Covaxin developments are being overlooked by topmost government officials. Therefore, Covaxin is the top-most priority of the central government and the scientists at ICMR.
The viral strain for Covaxin was developed by scientists at National Institute of Virology, Pune via isolation from SARS-CoV-2. For the human trials of Covaxin, ICMR has selected 12 institutes across the country. AIIMS Patna is among the top institutes selected for the job and the hospital is going to choose 18 volunteers best suited for the trial.
A lot of people got in touch with the hospital to let them participate in the Covaxin human trials. However, the institute has selected only 18 volunteers between the age group of 18-55 years. The said trials will begin on Monday. And the selected volunteers will go through a health check-up before the trial is initiated.
According to the ICMR guidelines, the first dose of Covaxin will be administered only to the patients with normal health reports. After this procedure, the patients will stay under medical supervision for 2-3 hours. If the patients experience no side-effects, they will be sent home. The total duration of Covaxin human trials will witness administration of 3 vaccine dosages.
As of today, according to WHO, 122 vaccines are in the line for battling the spread of novel coronavirus. Out of these 122 vaccines, WHO has approved 22 for further trials. Other than Covaxin, the coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University/Astra Zeneca and the Chinese coronavirus vaccine “Sinovac” are approved for PHASE-III of human trials by WHO.
ICMR, BBIL and the whole country have their fingers crossed for the human trials for Covaxin. Hopefully, the trials will be successful, and the world will be free of the coronavirus pandemic soon.