Hyderabad-based manufacturer Bharat Biotech Limited vaccine candidate - Covaxin being developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), will possibly be made available for public use by the end of February 2021 said Dr Sanjay Roy, principal investigator (PI) heading its clinical trial at AIIMS, on Tuesday.
He said, "We can hope the general population will get their hands on the vaccine doses by February.”
Dr Roy also said that two indigenous vaccine candidates which are frontrunners are expected to hit the market before the end of the first quarter of 2021. He added, "The Covishield by Serum Institute of India (SII) is also a frontrunner and also in the third phase of clinical trials. I expect it to be available for public use around the time of Covaxin.”
Covaxin is undergoing phase III of clinical trials at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences where more than 100 volunteers have already received the first dose of the vaccine. The target is to get 26,000 volunteers for the phase III clinical trial of the Covaxin.
The volunteers would receive two intramuscular injections at a period of 28 days apart. The trial is double-blinded and the volunteers will be randomly assigned to receive COVAXIN or placebo. The investigators, participants and the company will not be aware of who is assigned to which group.
Anybody of or above 18 years is eligible to take part in the vaccine trial.
Bharat Biotech has applied for emergency use authorisation (EUA) to Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) on Monday, a day after SII applied for the same on Sunday.
Apart from these two, US-based pharma giant Pfizer Inc had also applied on December 4 to the DCGI seeking EUA for its COVID-19 vaccine in India.
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The Covaxin was recently under scrutiny after its VIP participant, Haryana's Health Minister Anil Vij tested positive for the novel coronavirus two weeks after being administered the trial vaccine shot.
The union health ministry on Tuesday has informed that as many as eight coronavirus vaccine candidates are under different stages of clinical trials which could be ready for authorisation in near future.