The test for the COVID-19 vaccine, COVISHIELD, developed by the Oxford University, with Serum India Limited and ICMR as partners, in King George Hospital and Andhra Medical College is likely to begin in the next 10 days. KGH and AMC are one among the nine centres identified by the ICMR and Serum India for the test.
A team from Serum India is expected to arrive at KGH early next week to inspect the facility, the gadgets and equipment that they have, before giving the final authorisation to run the tests.
“Once the team leaves, we will give a public notification within a week for volunteers to come forward for the test,” said Principal of Andhra Medical College and Superintendent (in-charge) KGH, P.V. Sudhakar. “In the notification, we will clearly mention who are eligible and who are not, by defining the inclusion and exclusion criteria, as this will reduce the load on the team that will select the volunteers,” he said. It is understood that people with co-morbidities such as diabetes, blood pressure, renal problems and other ailments will not be allowed and they need not apply.
Testing procedure
KGH and AMC intend to select 100 volunteers for conducting the test and all volunteers will be tested for antibodies and COVID.
“For COVID, we will conduct RT-PCR test and the volunteer should test negative for both COVID and antibodies. People infected earlier with COVID, will also not be considered as volunteers,” said Dr. Sudhakar.
“Three days after the basic test results are declared, we will administer or inject the vaccine that has been developed. On that day we will monitor the volunteer for two hours, when the actual monitoring time is just 30 minutes, for any instant reaction. From then on, he or she will be monitored for overall health condition and antibodies as per the protocol,” he said.
“Once the vaccine is administered to a group of volunteers, we will be monitoring the level of development of antibodies in them to see if the vaccine has the stimulating properties to develop antibodies that is required to fight the virus,” he said.
According to Dr. Sudhakar, the monitoring period starts from two weeks to six months.
The last monitoring test will be held after a period of six months and the results will be sent to the designated labs for further evaluation, he said.
According to him, the entire testing procedure will last from six to eight months.
