COVID-19 vaccine: PGI Rohtak to start Bharat Biotech's Covaxin's Phase-2 trials

The phase 2 clinical trial of Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN, India’s first indigenously developed vaccine against COVID-19, is all set to begin at Post Graduate Institute (PGI) Rohtak, the vice-chancellor has informed.

"We got permission from Bharat Biotech to start a phase-2 human clinical trial of their vaccine. We've 300 volunteers, aged between 12 years and 65 years, out of which screening of 15 has been completed," Dr. OP Kalra said, adding they hope to get vaccine dosages by Wednesday morning.

Covaxin is one of the frontrunners in the race for a Coronavirus vaccine in India. It is an “inactivated" vaccine — it works by injecting doses of the virus that have been killed aiming to prompt the body to build antibodies against it without the virus posing a threat. The human trials for Covaxin commenced in Haryana on July 17.

Recently, Niti Aayog member Dr. Vinod K Paul said that Bharat Biotech's vaccine candidate procured by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Zydus Cadila's candidate based on viral DNA are two Indian COVID-19 vaccines in second phase trial.

"In India, Bharat Biotech's vaccine candidate based on inactivated virus procured by ICMR is in the Phase II trial along with Zydus Cadila's candidate which is based on viral DNA. The Oxford vaccine candidate developed by Serum Institute of India is already in Phase III trial in Maharashtra and some other States," he said.

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India Coronavirus outbreak 

On Monday, India surpassed Brazil to become the country with the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world. The total coronavirus cases in the country reached 42,04,614 including 8,82,542 active cases, 32,50,429 cured/discharged/migrated and 71,642 deaths, as per Health Ministry data. The recovery rate stands at 77.65% while the case fatality rate is 1.70%. 

Moreover, India scaled another peak after its cumulative tests surpassed 5 crore on Tuesday. As per the Health Ministry,  5,06,50,128 have been conducted of which 0,98,621 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. The tests per million (TPM) have seen a sharp rise from 6,396 on July 1 to 36,703 as of today. There are 1,668 test labs in the country; 1035 labs in the government sector and 633 private labs.

(With ANI inputs)

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