Bharat BioTech, the Hyderabad based company that announced the country’s first COVID-19 vaccine COVAXIN a few weeks ago, is all set to conduct its first set of clinical trials with 375 people in the first set. Covaxin will be tested on more than 1,100 people in phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. This vaccine was developed by the company in collaboration with the National Institute of Virology in Pune and was derived from an isolated strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus. This is touted to be launched by August 15.
On July 2, ICMR Director chief Dr. Balram Bhargava wrote to 12 trial sites for the indigenous vaccine, stating that all clinical trials need to be completed by August 15. However, the August 15 target was criticized by experts who said that fast-tracking vaccine trials in four weeks could pose serious health risks. In a statement on Monday, the Indian Academy of Sciences, a Bengaluru-based body of scientists, said that while it wishes the vaccine is quickly made available for public use, the announced timeline is únfeasible’ and unrealistic’.
Amidst all of this, two other companies have also come up with vaccines of their own. Zydus Pharma and BioNTech, (which collaborated with Pfizer) recently announced their own vaccine candidates, which had been approved by DCGI. This brings the total number of companies that are working on a potential coronavirus vaccine to 6.
Meanwhile, the country has surpassed Russia’s numbers and stands third in the world with more than 11.6 million, while the death toll is 5,37,000.