Two hospitals in Tamil Nadu have been selected to participate in the COVID-19 vaccine trials conducted by Oxford University. The vaccine, dubbed Covishield in India and backed by British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, is expected to provide immunity against the SARS-CoV-2.
In an official statement, state Health Minister Dr C Vijayabaskar said that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) selected Chennai to participate in the clinical trials. The vaccine, which is currently in phase 2 of trials, will be tested on around 300 people at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital and Sri Ramachandra Medical Center (SRMC), Porur. The minister added that the vaccine will be introduced for public usage after phase 3 of the clinical trials.
The testing will be conducted by the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) and ICMR on healthy individuals above the age of 18. Dr TS Selvavinayagam, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine will be the Principal Investigator for the trials in Chennai.
Covishield vaccine [ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222)] will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and will be tested in 17 cities along with more than 1600 volunteers. The Serum Institute of India has said that the vaccine will be manufactured commercially after all trials are successful and regulatory approvals are in place.
The phase 2 trials for the vaccine began on Wednesday at Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University (BVDU) Medical College and Hospital, Pune, where five volunteers had registered themselves for the trial. The other hospitals that have received approval to carry out Covishield vaccine trials are Jehangir Clinical Development Center, KEM Hospital in Pune, King George Hospital at Visakhapatnam and the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences at Patna.
Other than the Oxford University project, Bharat Biotech (for Covaxin) and Zydus Cadila (for ZyCOV-D) are also conducting trials in India.