HYDERABAD: The Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) has hit the pause button on the human trials for Covaxin, the vaccine developed by Bharat Biotech to fight the highly contagious novel Coronavirus. This is owing to hiccups in terms of procurement of necessary equipment and infrastructure for the trial.
Hospital sources say the delays were routine in nature and meant to ensure the safety of candidates taking part in the clinical trial. This would delay the trial by two-three days.
“The work on the human clinical trial has begun. However, before administering the drug, some things have to be put in place. Ensuring good health of the candidates is our priority. We need the best equipment in place to do that which has caused a short delay,” said a senior NIMS official.
The official further explained that while some candidates have been tested and selected, the hurdles came up just before the administration of the drug.
“Even though we have ensured that everything is in place, there are some small measures that had to be put in place which took a little time. These are only initial hiccups,” said the official without revealing more details.
NIMS is one of the 12 centres selected in the country for conducting human trials for Covaxin. At the 12 institutions, a total of 375 candidates would be administered the first dose of the vaccine.
NIMS hopes to conduct the trials on about 60 candidates.