The Ethics committee of AIIMS has given its permission to conduct human trials of Covaxin – the indigenous vaccine developed to give protection against coronavirus.
The hospital will start the screening process of candidates from Monday.
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In an interview given to NDTV, Dr Sanjay Rai, Professor at the Centre for Community Medicine at AIIMS, noted:
The AIIMS Ethics Committee gave its approval for starting the human clinical trial of the indigenously developed Covaxin today. Healthy volunteers having no comorbid conditions and without a history of COVID-19, aged more than 18 years and less than 55 years, would be eligible to participate in the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.
While adding:
Few volunteers have already registered for the trial. We would start the screening of the individuals and evaluate their health condition from Monday onwards before vaccinating them.
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AIIMS is one of the 12 sites which have been selected for the phase 1 and 2 of human trials, by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).
In the first phase, a total of 375 volunteers will be participating, out of which, 100 can be from AIIMS.
Covaxin has been developed by Bharat Biotech, a Hydeberad-based firm, in collaboration with National Institute of Virology and ICMR.
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