On the heels of the announcement of by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, which developed India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine, Covaxin, the serum manufacturing company is now planning to start the test of its vaccine on the children aged between two and 15 years, reports Economic Times.
Covaxin is India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine which has received emergency use approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) and was developed in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
“…we are now planning a clinical trial on children between two and 15 years. We are going to submit (proposal) to SEC (subject expert committee) soon for that,” Bharat Biotech chairman Dr Krishna Ella was quoted as saying during a virtual interaction with the media persons.
According to the report, Bharat Biotech will be the first Covid-19 vaccine candidate to begin testing on children in September.
In the Phase 2 trials of the Covaxin in September, a double-blinded study has already been conducted on 380 volunteers in the age bracket of 12 to 65 years.
Ella said that Covaxin is an “inactivated virus vaccine based on a tried and tested Vero cell platform” that has been used for multiple vaccines. “The injectable polio vaccine we have given to a newborn baby… it’s a proven platform and the safest to give to children,” he said.