The Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) recently began the clinical trials of COVAXIN, a potential vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19.
On the 22nd of July, the NIMS doctors’ administered the dose of the COVAXIN medicine to two more Volunteers in Hyderabad.
NIMS began the clinical trials on the 20th of July and is conducting them in a step by step process.
The first step towards the clinical trial on the 20th of July was successful. NIMS doctors said the condition of two volunteers were stable and they were discharged on the 22nd of July.
Following the first step, the doctors at NIMS administered the medicine to two other people.
Now, the health condition of the two volunteers will be monitored for 14 days, said Dr. C. Prabhakar Reddy, the COVAXIN clinical trials principal investigator, said the situation of the Volunteers would be observed for 14 days, following which the COVID-19 infected patients would be tested.
Doctors said that they will monitor the extent to which antibodies have been developed in the volunteer’s body due to the inactivated virus and if there are any problems. Doctors further added that they would give the volunteers a second dose of vaccine if everything went well.
Doctors at the NIMS clinical and pharmacology department are delighted that the first attempt of the human clinical trial of the COVAXIN vaccine has been successful.
As part of the clinical trials, NIMS doctors sent blood samples of 13 volunteers to the Indian Council Medical Research (ICMR) approved lab in Delhi.
Out of the 13 samples, eight of were given fitness certificates.
The COVAXIN trials would be conducted in phases. As part of these trials, the first and second phase trials will be conducted on 60 healthy people and the third stage involves experimenting on a hundred people.
The vaccine is given in five doses in total and the vaccine is expected to be completed in 2 – 3 months.
However, the ICMR set a deadline and asked the medical institutions to complete the trails by the 15th of August.
The deadline was set as the Central Government is planning to launch the vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus on the 2020 Independence Day, the 15th of August.
However, the final announcement would depend on the successful clinical trials of the potential candidate vaccine.
Stay tuned for further updates.
