Coronavirus vaccine: Human trials of India's first coronavirus vaccine to begin, AIIMS Patna selects 18 volunteers for clinical trials

It has been more than six months since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China and the contagion has infected more than 12 million people across the world and claimed 5,71,660 lives. As of now, there are close to 155 vaccines in several stages of trials to combat the spread of the contagious virus and 22 of them have reached the clinical trial stage.

While we all know about the global frontrunners in the race develop the vaccine including Moderna, CanSino, Inovio, BioNtech, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, back home AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) Patna, is all set to begin human trials of India’s first coronavirus vaccine, Covaxine.

For the unversed, India’s first possible COVID vaccine ‘Covaxine’ will be developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology (NIV). To develop the vaccine candidate, the SARSCoV2 strain was isolated in NIV, Pune and transferred to Bharat Biotech. It is an inactivated vaccine which uses the dead SARSCoV2 particles to trigger the body to develop immunity against the virus by creating protective antibodies. According to Bharat Biotech, the vaccine candidate was able to develop an immune response during the pre-clinical trials.

To conduct the human trials, ICMR (The Indian Council of Medical Research) had selected 12 medical institutes across the nation including AIIMS Patna and Delhi. The medical institute in Patna will start the clinical trials on 18 volunteers who are between the age of 18 to 55. It should be noted that even though a lot of people contacted the medical institute to take part in the trials, only 18 were selected.

All the 18 selected volunteers will undergo a complete medical check-up and the trial will only begin after their reports are carefully analyzed and given a go-ahead. According to the guidelines of The Indian Council of Medical Research, the first dose of Covaxine will be given only to those volunteers whose reports turn out to be okay.

To conduct the first phase of the trial, the participants will be under observation for two to three hours after being administered the first dose. They will be given three doses of the vaccine candidate to complete the trial. To ensure the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, all the volunteers will remain under observation for two to three hours, after each dosage.