COVAXIN’s Phase I Of Human Trials Sees No Side-Effects

At the Institute of Medical Sciences as well as SUM Hospital, preparations are underway for the next phase of India’s indigenous COVID-19 vaccine.

For the first phase, each volunteer was injected with two doses of COVAXIN. According to Dr. E. Vankata Rao, the trial’s Principal Investigator, the first dose was injected on Day Zero after they collected the blood samples of the volunteers. And on Day 14, the volunteers received the second dose. Their blood samples were collected again.

The researchers collected the volunteers’ blood samples to see the vaccine’s effectiveness in terms of developing antibodies. Dr. Rao added that in the first phase, no volunteers had experienced any side effects.

The volunteers were selected via a screening process that had been carried out from three to seven days before the vaccination began.

Blood samples will be taken on different days (day 28, day 42, day 104, day 194) to evaluate the duration of protection.

COVAXIN is the first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine of India, developed by Bharat Biotech. The vaccine’s development was a collaboration with the National Institute of Virology and Indian Council of Medical Research.

Bharat Biotech developed the inactivated and indigenous vaccine at its Bio-Safety Level 3 (BSL-3) high containment facility in the Genome Valley, in Hyderabad.

Besides Bharat Biotech, there are at least five other companies in India that are working on developing a vaccine for the novel coronavirus. Other companies around the world are also racing to come up with a vaccine to tackle the disease.

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