Bharat Biotech starts human trials for Covaxin, India’s first COVID-19 vaccine

Bharat Biotech has started human trials on its vaccine candidate, ‘Covaxin’. Covaxin, being developed by the Hyderabad-based biotech company and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is India’s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine.

Bharat Biotech had stated that it is working to develop an initial capacity of 200 million vials of the vaccine.

The company had earlier received approval from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to conduct phase I and II human clinical trials.

Volunteers from across the nation will first undergo health checks to ensure proper liver function and absence of infection before being cleared for small doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The sites for the trial includes cities Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Rohtak, Chennai, Patna, Vishakhapatnam among others.

COVAXIN is derived from a strain of SARS-CoV-2 virus which had been isolated at National Institute of Virology, Pune, a translational science cells part of ICMR. The strain was then later transferred to Bharat Biotech to produce into a vaccine candidate.