AIIMS-Patna has started testing COVAXIN, India's first indigenous coronavirus vaccine, on 10 people selected by the hospital for the trial.
COVAXIN is the vaccine developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in partnership with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) derived from a strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus isolated at the National Institute of Virology, Pune.
AIIMS-Patna has tested vaccine on 10 volunteers picked by the hospital authority for the trial. According to the report, the first dose of the vaccine has been administered and the second dose be given after an interval of 14 days.The vaccine has shown safety and effective immune responses in animal studies.
Upon completion of the scheduled period, participants will be taken for check-up for any after-effects of the vaccine. The hospital is one of the 12 sites selected by the ICMR to conduct clinical trials of COVAXIN. Earlier, AIIMS-Patna Superintendant Dr CM Singh told a newspaper that the vaccine would be tested only on healthy people aged between 22-50 years, irrespective of gender.
In an exclusive interview with Times Now Digital, Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Biotech, had earlier said that he believes the experimental vaccine would work against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Bharat Biotech had said that it is working to make an initial capacity of 200 million vials of the vaccine.