Safe So Far: Bharat Biotech - ICMR's Covaxin Shows No Adverse Effects In Preliminary Phase I Results

Early results from the first phase of Bharat Biotech - Indian Council For Medical Research (ICMR) developed vaccine for Covid-19, named Covaxin, indicate that the vaccine is safe, Economic Times has reported.

At present trials are on for the vaccine with 375 volunteers across 12 sites in the country. Each volunteer has received two doses of the vaccine.

"We have no observed any adverse events in any of the volunteers at our site", one of the principal investigators is quoted by ET as saying.

At the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi the team is preparing for administering the second dose and so so far no adverse effects have been observed. Sixteen volunteers are involved with the vaccine trials at AIIMs.

The vaccine, being developed from a SARS-CoV-2 strain of the virus isolated by the National Institute of Virology, Pune, is much looked forward to by the union government. ET quotes an anonymous investigator saying that if everything goes according to plan the vaccine may be available in the market as early as first half of the next year.