Novel coronavirus made the world numb. The numbers of Positive cases are rising drastically.
Mankind is behind the bars as they have no other option. Meanwhile, scientists have sacrificed their all day and night to discover coronavirus vaccines.
Social media is serving the updates of each of every step about developing the vaccines. Though some of them are fake, these have been shared without any verification.
Nowadays all the news channels have fixed their focus on an Oxford COVID-19 vaccine Covishield.
According to the report, the much-awaited coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford may be the first hit for Indians at the end of 2020.
The Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) is expected to begin the trials in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research. The Drug Controller General of India has approved Serum institute to conduct phase two and three human trials.
( Source- Deccan Herald.)
Five volunteers have inoculated the vaccine for the Phase II trial. Three of them are from medical college, as per the senior medical personnel from Bharti Vidyapeeth’s Medical College and Hospital in Pune.
After the COVID-19 and antibody tests, three volunteers caught positive test reports for coronavirus, henceforth they became unavailable for the trials. The rest of the volunteers were administered the vaccine, as per the news agency PTI.
After Bharti hospital in Pune, King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital and Research center has come forward for human trials. According to the doctors of KEM hospital, they are working on more volunteers at Phase II human trials.
All together six volunteers, including an ex CEO of a pharma company and his family were injected Oxford- AstraZeneca Covishield. No side effects have been reported till Thursday.
Pune based SII and ICMR have shortlisted 17 cities all over India for clinical trials of COVID-19 and around 1600 people between the ages of 18-55 will be administered the vaccine.
“After the completion of phase II trial, reports will be submitted to the Data Safety Monitoring Board, then to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization for stage 3 of the trial,” Dr. Hemant Deshmukh, KEM hospital said.
A few days back, there were some reports in some parts of media claiming that the Serum Institute of India would be ready for marketing the Oxford University developed Covishield, in the next 73 days.
But Serum Institute of India (SII) clarified the claim as ‘false’ and ‘conjectural.’
Later, SII mentioned that the government granted permission to manufacture the vaccine and stockpile for the future only. It will be commercialized if they passed all the phases of trials successfully with requisite approval from the government. They also added that the phase III trials will be started soon.
Apart from Covishield, several vaccines are in phase II and III. COVAXIN, developed by Hyderabad based pharma firm, Bharat Biotech has got permission from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) to inject the vaccine through the intradermal route.
Although the nations are optimistic about a well-developed COVID-19 vaccine, it remains to be seen whether the Covishield can put an end to the miserable pandemic or not.
– By Saswati Chattopadhyay.