COVID-19 vaccine | AIIMS scouts for volunteers for Covaxin human trials

The volunteers ought to be aged between 18 and 55 years and should not have any comorbidities. To participate, they would have to send an email to ctaiims.covid19@gmail.com or send an SMS to 7428847499 or call 7428847499.

Moneycontrol News

July 19, 2020 / 15:49 IST

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi will begin the human trials for indigenous novel coronavirus vaccine Covaxin from July 20. The institute will start screening healthy individuals who have enrolled for the vaccine trials.

The move comes after the AIIMS Ethics Committee gave its nod for the human clinical trials of Covaxin on July 18.

Speaking to the media about the development, Dr Sanjay Rai, Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS, said: “We have got the approval from the AIIMS Ethics Committee to start 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. This would be a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.”

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A total of 12 institutes will be conducting phase I and phase II of the Covaxin human trials, which includes AIIMS Delhi. The vaccine would be tested on 375 volunteers, of whom 100 would be from AIIMS.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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