Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan reported Sunday that coronavirus vaccines are currently in various phases of testing. and its results are awaited. The Union Health Minister was interacting with his social media followers on the fifth episode of the ‘Sunday Samvaad’ platform.
Vardhan explained that phase 1 trials for vaccines are primarily conducted to establish product safety, while the phase 2 clinical trial measures immunogenicity as a primary endpoint and safety as a secondary endpoint.
In phase 3 clinical trials, both safety and immunogenicity continue to be measured as secondary endpoints, with efficacy being the primary endpoint for this phase of a clinical trial.
Currently, two indigenously developed candidate vaccines, one from Bharat Biotech in collaboration with ICMR and the other from Zydus Cadila Ltd, are in phase 2 of human clinical trials.
Pune-based Serum Institute of India, which has partnered with AstraZeneca to also manufacture the candidate Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, is conducting Phase 2 and 3 human clinical trials of the candidate in India.
The minister had previously said that a Covid-19 vaccine is likely to be available by the first quarter of 2021.
“In a huge country like India, it is critical to prioritize vaccine delivery based on various factors such as risk of exposure, comorbidity among various population groups, mortality rate among COVID-19 cases, and several others,” said the minister.
He also added that India is looking at the availability of several different types of vaccines, some of which may be suitable for a particular age group, while others may not be.
Meanwhile, India’s COVID-19 case count surpassed 70 lakh, 13 days after crossing the 60 lakh mark, while the number of people who have recovered from the disease surpassed 60 lakh, according to data from the Union Ministry of Health updated on Sunday.
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