THD NewsDesk, New Delhi: With the dreadful respiratory virus taking more and more lives every day, the healthcare and biotechnology industry has united to discover the vaccine of COVID-19 promptly. Two leading New-Delhi based Biotechnology groups, Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila have respectively completed their first phase of the vaccine trials and have consequently moved to the second phase.
Three weeks into examining the immunization shots of the vaccine against the calamitous contagion of COVID-19, both the companies have proceeded to the second phase of the trials, as claimed by Balram Bhargava, the Director-General of Indian Council of Medical Research on the 5th of August, 2020. ‘
He articulated, “At present, we have three vaccines in different levels of clinical testing. The first one is the inactivated virus vaccine, which is the Bharat Biotech vaccine, which has completed its phase I study in 11 sites and has started its phase II study. Similarly, for the DNA vaccine of Zydus Cadila, India has completed the phase I study and has embarked on phase II studies,” Bhargava said at a press conference on Tuesday.”
There has been no witnessed or recorded response on the statement of the Director-General of ICMR by either of the companies. Any comment on the same has been avoided, while contact through calls or messages remains averted.
Questions have risen the rapidly moving and compressed timelines of the contending companies in the race of COVID-19 vaccine production.
It was only in the month of June that the process of enrolment of the vaccine contenders and their human trials were initiated. A contender of the COVID-19 virus vaccine indicated that the production of the COVID-19 vaccine is going to be a tedious and gradual process and further exclaimed that the completion of the vaccine trials in a brief time is highly “unprecedented.”
The first phase monitored for 84 days, or 12 weeks, with typically 3 doses being administered in the interval of 28 days, with regular-spaced monitoring, while the second phase being adjacently conducted till the 224th day indicated the trial protocol of Zydus Cadila.
While, Bharat Biotech’s vaccine candidate presented that their phase 1 studies will be conducted and regulated every two weeks through the administration of the vaccine, with monitoring of the events occurring after two hours of the first dose, and then after seven days. They further plan to audit the human immunization at regular intervals throughout the study duration.
On seeking comment from the bioethics researcher, Anant Bhan, he said, “These are pandemic times, and I know, everyone is compressing (trial) timelines. Some are wrapping up a phase, analyzing data, and then moving to the next phase. Others conducting a parallel phase I and II and they are overlapping with each other… They have to make sure they also monitor the safety in phase II and phase III.”
The two companies germinate the hope of vaccine for the population with increased progress. With COVID-19 cases surging new heights with the passing minute, the people look forward to the announcement of the vaccine for the same.
Source: livemint.com
By Antara Adhikari