Coronavirus vaccine: COVAXIN trial begins in 2 hospitals in India

As the number of coronavirus cases is growing at a staggering speed worldwide with each passing day, the race to find an effective treatment against the virus is also getting intense. On Sunday, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases across the globe crossed the 14 million mark and the total fatalities were recorded as 602, 914. Every single minute there is a new addition in the numbers. To curb the growth of this contagious virus, the top mind across the globe are working at wasp speed to develop an effective vaccine fit for human use.

At present, a total of 155 vaccines contenders are at different stages of trials, of which 23 have reached the human trial stage. Indian Pharmaceutical companies are also fighting a neck-to-neck battle to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus. Out of 7 vaccines being researched in India, 2 homegrown vaccines have now started human clinical trials of their prototypes.

India's first indigenous vaccine, COVAXIN by Hyderabad based Bharat Biotech International Limited (BBIL), developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) got an approval from the AIIMS Ethics Committee to start human trials from Monday.

Out of the 12 sites selected by the ICMR for conducting phase I and II human trials of COVAXIN, the trial has already started well in AIIMS Patna and Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) at Rohtak in Haryana.

Prakhar Hospital in Kanpur and Rana Hospital and Trauma Centre in Gorakhpur, the two private hospitals among the 12 institutes are also set to begin the trial of the vaccine soon. Interestingly, none of the two hospitals is affiliated to a medical college and is not a dedicated coronavirus hospital.

Prakhar Hospital will test the vaccine at a sample size of 50 people in the first phase and another 150 in the second phase. However, Rana Hospital is awaiting a safety certificate to begin the procedure.

In the first phase of the human trial of COVAXIN, the vaccine would be tested on 375 volunteers, of which 100 would be from AIIMS. As per the BBIL, the first phase of the trial will be done randomized double-blind trials. In this, some participants will be given a vaccine dose while others will be given a placebo.

Ahmedabad based Zydus Cadila's novel COVID-19 vaccine, ZyCOV-D is also conducting human trials at different centres across the country. Pankaj Patel, Zydus Cadila chairman recently asserted that they are hopeful of having the vaccine available for the masses by early 2021.

The pharmaceutical company will be enrolling over 1,000 volunteers across the country for the trial.

Indian Medical Association (IMA) has stated that the potential vaccine for coronavirus upon its development and marketing would reach the usable stage only after 2020.

"Developing a vaccine for viral infections is a longer process as firstly, these infections have shorter immunity and secondly, viruses mutate faster, so this makes developers clueless as to which mutation is there in which part of the country," said Dr V K Monga, IMA Board of Hospitals Chairman.