Last week, Dr. Srivastava volunteered for the third phase of the trial of Covaxin, a indigenous vaccine developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (
The 55-year-old doctor added that he had not suffered any side effects after administering the vaccine. Recently, there was a controversy when a participant in a trial for another Covid-19 vaccine claimed to have had serious side effects.
AIIMS plans to enroll more than 1,000 volunteers for the third phase of the Covaxin trials. Sources said that between 40 and 50 volunteers have already registered and have even received the first shot from the indigenous people.
“The third phase of the trials will have more than 26,000 participants across the country. It is the most important stage of the trials and it occurs before the vaccine can be used to immunize people against the viral infection that has plagued the world for almost nine months, ”revealed a senior physician from the AIIMS department of community medicine. The doctor also revealed that the first and second phases of the Covaxin trials had been completed and that the trial participants had tolerated it well.
In addition to Covaxin, other vaccines are under development for Covid, including those from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Oxford-AstraZeneca. “Unlike the other Covid vaccines, Covaxin is likely to be much cheaper,” said the AIIMS doctor who is leading the vaccine trials. Also, storage and transportation will be easier for India. This vaccine can be stored at 2 to 8 degrees Celsius. “The other vaccines require comparably very low storage and transport temperatures.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Bharat Biotech facility in Genome Valley, Hyderabad, on Saturday and congratulated the scientists involved in the vaccine development project for their progress on the project. After the visit, the prime minister tweeted: “At the Bharat Biotech facility in Hyderabad, they were informed about their indigenous Covid-19 vaccine. He congratulated the scientists on their progress in the trials so far. His team is working closely with ICMR to facilitate rapid progress. ”
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