A vaccine for COVID-19 from India is unlikely to be ready for public use by August 15 but early data on whether it is safe and proof of its working could be available by then, say clinicians involved with the trial.
On July 2, Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr. Balram Bhargava sent out a letter asking officials at 12 hospitals across the country to expedite the vaccine testing process.
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The vaccine candidate, called Covaxin, has been developed by Hyderabad-based, Bharat Biotech India Ltd (BBIL) who got approvals from the Drug Controller General of India on June 29 for phase-1 and phase-2 trials.
The trials are done on groups of people and meant to test if the vaccine is safe in humans and produces protective antibodies. The potential vaccine in question is a sars-cov-2 strain sourced from the ICMR-National Institute of Virology. The aim is to test if the weakened form of the virus can stimulate enough immunity to protect healthy people from Sars cov-2 infection.
However a paragraph in Dr. Bhargava’s letter suggested a haste and presumption of the vaccine’s protective abilities. “It is envisaged to launch the vaccine for public health use latest by15th August, 2020 after completion of all clinical trials. BBIL is working expeditiously to meet the target, however final