AIIMS to start human clinical trial of Covaxin

In a significant development, the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) Ethics Committee has authorised for a human clinical trial of the Covid 19 vaccine Covaxin fro next week on 100 healthy volunteers.

Dr Sanjay Rai, Professor at the Centre for Community Medicine at AIIMS announced that the hospital will begin enrolling healthy individuals from Monday, July 20. 

"Today, we got approval from AIIMS Ethics Committee for starting the human clinical trial of the indigenously developed Covaxin. We are launching the enrollment process from Monday. We are going to select healthy participants with no comorbidities and without a history of COVID-19. The age group of the study population is 18 to 55 years. This would be a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial," Dr Rai stated.

It is be noted that Covaxin is originally developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV).

AIIMS-Delhi is one among the 12 sites selected by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) for conducting phase I and II human trials of Covaxin. In phase I, the vaccine would be tested on 375 volunteers and a maximum of 100 of them would be from AIIMS.

AIIMS has readied a dedicated email and phone number for the volunteers to register themselves for this project. The volunteers who will engage in the trial will have to undergo tests, which include Covid-19 test and also tests for other comorbidities. If the vounteers are found healthy, they will be directed the vaccine.

"Any healthy individual who wishes to participate in the trial can send in an email on Ctaiims.covid19@gmail.com or send an SMS or call on 7428847499," he informed

 In the first and second phase AIIMS (Delhi) will choose only 100 participants out of 375 volunteers and the remaining will participate at other sites, Sanjay Rai, Professor of Community Medicine and Principal Investigator of Covid-19 vaccine trial at AIIMS stated.

"We have already registered a few volunteers for the trial. From Monday onwards, our team will start their health screening before giving them vaccination," he said.

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