VISAKHAPATNAM: Human trials for corona vaccine, Covishield, began at King George Hospital -Andhra Medical College here on Monday. Dr PV Sudhakar, KGH Superintendent and AMC principal, told TNIE that Covishield vaccine was administered to three volunteers on Day One.
He said there will be gradual increase in number of volunteers for the vaccine. Till now, 15 volunteers have enrolled their names for human trials. Registration of volunteers and human trials of vaccine go simultaneously. As many as 100 volunteers will be given the vaccine at KGH.
Only healthy people and those above 18 years having no comorbidities, are being chosen for the trials. Selected volunteers will undergo clinical tests for Covid-19.
Only corona negative persons will be administered the vaccine, Dr Sudhakar said. Testing of volunteers began on Saturday and, after getting the reports they began the exercise of administering vaccine to them on Monday, he said.
After administering the vaccine, blood samples will be collected from the volunteers so as to analyse the development of antibodies, he said.
The vaccine will be administered on the first day, 29th day, 57th day and 90th day. They should come on the 180th day for the final visit. Blood samples will be sent immediately to Serum Institute of India (SII) at Pune for further tests.
About 1,600 people are undergoing human trials for the vaccine candidate across the country. The clinical trials results will be announced by the SII once the trials conclude, he said.
An 18-member team, including a principal investigator, 10 co-investigators, seven supporting staff, is involved in administering the vaccine.
Dr Sudhakar said volunteers will be given vaccine injection after recording their body temperature and blood pressure. They will be under observation for half-an-hour and will be sent home.
Also they will be given paracetamol tablet since they may get temperature.
The volunteers will be given Rs 500 for conveyance since it is purely a voluntary effort. He said on the first day, vaccine was administered to only three persons to ascertain logistic support at the facility.
The vaccine administration is a long procedure as they have to read out all conditions of vaccine to get the consent of the volunteer.
He said volunteers will be given contact numbers of the hospitals to reach them if they develop any problem. If they don’t develop problems, they should visit on the stipulated dates for trials.
Dr Sudhakar said the hospital PROs will be contacting the volunteers about their health status on a regular basis.
The corona vaccine Covishield was developed jointly by Jenner Institute of the University of Oxford and British-Swedish pharma company, AstraZeneca. The Pune-based SII has partnered with AstraZeneca for manufacturing the Civud-19 vaccine in India.