Clinical trials of Covishield, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, will be launched at two institutions in Chennai — the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and the Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, Porur.
Three hundred persons will be recruited for the trials, Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar said on Wednesday.
The Indian Council of Medical Research and the Drugs Controller General of India had selected Chennai for conducting trials.
In a release on Wednesday, he said Tamil Nadu’s Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine was appointed the principal investigator. The trials would engage healthy individuals above 18 years of age.
The initiative will be jointly carried out by the National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis, Chennai, and the ICMR. Official sources said the vaccine’s safety would be tested at RGGGH, while its immunogenicity would be evaluated at SRIHER. The institutes would have 150 participants each.
The Minister said the vaccine stimulated a T-cell response in the body in 14 days. These T-cells, which are white blood cells, attacked the cells infected by the novel coronavirus. The vaccine prompted an antibody response in 28 days. “On completion of the second phase of the trial, the third phase would be conducted, and it is expected that the vaccine would be brought into use soon,” he said.
