In TN, 14 persons given COVID vaccine shot- Second phase of trial begins
Posted on: 09/Sep/2020 9:01:08 AM
On Tuesday, 8th September 2020, the phase-2 human clinical trials of indigenous Covid-19 vaccine began at the SRM Medical College and Hospital centre in Kattankolathur. As many as 14 volunteers were administered a vaccine shot.
Official launching of the Covid-19 vaccine would be taken based on the sufficient data that would be available before the end of this year. It is common knowledge that the Covid-19 vaccine was developed by Bharat Biotech of Hyderabad in association with the national Institute of Virology.
Kattankolathur based SRM was one of the 12 institutions that was selected by ICMR for the sake of conducting vaccine trials. It was on 23rd July the phase-1 trials started and as many as 30 volunteers were administered 2 doses each of 0.05ml of vaccine that contained inactivated Coronavirus for provoking immune response. Under the phase-2 trials, 14 were administered with the vaccine after the volunteers showed no side effects and their blood samples were sent to ICMR.
On the 28th day, the volunteers would be given a second shot of the vaccine. Information collected is in the phase-2 parameters like immunogenicity (ability of vaccine to provoke immune response), antibody titer (tests to detect and measure the amount of antibodies in the blood of a person, and safety of the vaccine would be analysed.
It was mentioned by Dr. Sathyajit Maohapatra, principal investigator at the hospital that it was a close selection phase. He explained that there were 3 formulations in the phase-1 and 2 of them were chosen for the phase-2. Truth is one with better results would be chosen in phase-2 and given to volunteers in phase-3 trials. The possibility of coming out with Covid-19 vaccine before the year end would depend on the results.
It must be noted that in the phase-2 around 50 volunteers would be administered 2 doses on day one and on day 28.
