The novel Coronavirus has taken over the world and it been four months since the pandemic began. The whole world is struggling against the deadly disease and trying to find a solution or a vaccine so that it could be contained as soon as possible. The cases have been increasing day by day and thousands of people have been infected by the virus. Along with the increase in infections, the recovery rate and the death rate is also increasing simultaneously.
Many countries infected by the disease are trying and working on the vaccine for the disease. India is also trying to create its own vaccine which can be used to cure those suffering from the infection. India has climbed the chart and has reached to be on the third spot in the highest number of cases.
But as the cases are increasing many pharmaceutical companies are engaged in creating the vaccine in India. And the good news here is India’s first indigenous coronavirus vaccine “COVAXIN” has now successfully entered the human trial phase. The vaccine is developed by a Hyderabad based company named Bharat Biotech. According to the company, the vaccine has shown safety and immune response in preclinical studies.
Bharat Biotech got the approval from the government to start the human trial for the vaccine. The human trial of COVAXIN will be starting from next week. The vaccine is India’s first indigenous vaccine against the novel coronavirus by Bharat Biotech. They have collaborated with ICMR and NIV, Pune. They will be testing on more than 1,000 people in phase1 and phase 2 clinical trials. COVAXIN is derived from a strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus isolated in NIV, Pune, and transferred to Bharat Biotech to develop into a vaccine candidate.
According to reports, Bharat Biotech will be enrolling 375 people for phase 1 of the clinical trial. In phase 2 of the trial, 750 people will be enrolled. The testing is supposed to begin from July 13 and it is also the final day of the enrollment for the trials. The company claimed that the preclinical trial of the vaccine has been good and safe.
The ICMR director Chief Dr. Balram Bhargava told that 12 trial sites have been prepared for the indigenous vaccine and he is expecting that all the trials will be over by August 15. The target of August 15 was criticized by the experts as they fear that the hurry could cause 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’.
Zydus Cadila’s plasmid DNA vaccine candidate for COVID-19 (ZyCoV-D) became the second Indian vaccine to receive approval for clinical trials. According to the company, the vaccine is found to be immunogenic in multiple animals, also the preclinical trials showed the vaccine to be well-tolerated and safe. Another announced that was made by the company was that they had manufactured clinical GMP batches of the vaccine candidate. They are planning to initiate the clinical trials by July 2020 in various sites in India in over 1000 subjects.
As of now, six Indian companies have been working on the vaccine for COVID-19. So far the case in India has reached 7lakh+ cases, with around 20,000 death fatalities.
