Indian vaccine's 'impressive' safety profile drawing global attention: ICMR

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that the Indian vaccine against COVID-19, Covaxin, has been drawing global attention.

In a tweet, the ICMR said, “India’s indigenous vaccine against #COVID19 Covaxin — a product of ICMR-Bharat Biotech collaboration, achieves remarkable feat. Data generated from within India underlines impressive safety and immunogenicity profile of Covaxin and sparks Lancet’s interest in publishing them.”

The ICMR said, “Encouraging Phase I and Phase II COVAXIN trial results have paved the path for Phase III clinical trial in India, which is currently ongoing at 22 sites.”

Bharat Biotech, the manufacturer, has recruited 13,000 volunteers for the Phase III clinical trials of Covaxin and the target is to have 26,000 participants.

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The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) based in New Delhi on Thursday (December 24) invited volunteers for the Phase III clinical trial of the indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine candidate for which it is one of the sites.

“AIIMS, New Delhi, is a site for COVAXIN Phase III clinical trial. This is a whole-virion inactivated vaccine co-sponsored by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Bharat Biotech,” AIIMS said in an advertisement.

AIIMS Centre for Community Medicine professor Dr Sanjay K Rai said through the advertisement that Phase I/II trials (safety and immunogenicity) have already been completed.