CLINICAL trials for the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine commence in Chennai, Pune

WITH a number of COVID-19 cases increasing in India and mortality rate reducing appreciably, the phase 2nd clinical trials of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine have commenced in Chennai and Pune. In Chennai, two prominent medical institutions are testing the second and third phase-field trials of the Oxford vaccine candidate Covishield. Meanwhile, the total number of COVID-19 infections in the southern state is nearing the four lakh mark of them 5,958 people were tested positive yesterday taking the total to over three lakh 97,000. State govt claims the active caseload in the state is about 52,000. Chennai is one of the 17 locations in India to conduct the field trial of the promising vaccine candidate Covishield, developed jointly by the Oxford University and AstraZeneca. The Government Rajiv Gandhi General Hospital and the Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research are the two institutions in the city that have commenced the trial. The state director of public health Dr TS Selva Vinayagam, who coordinates the study in Chennai, said healthy volunteers above the age of 18 are being involved in its multi-centric clinical trial “We will be starting the Phase-2 and Phase-3 together. We will be following the volunteers for up to 180 days. This is to assess the safety, immunogenicity and reactogenicity. We will be doing that.” The T-cells in the white blood corpuscles against the viral pathogen are said to be observed in 14-days after administering the vaccine and the antibodies in about 28 days. Their effectiveness to eliminate the virus and several other factors will be exhaustively tested during the trial. (image courtesy to The Hindustan Times)