Want to enrol in a vaccine trial? Know your eligibility

NEWDELHI: A televised advertisement led to about 1,000 people volunteering at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to participate in human trials of the first vaccine being indigenously developed, signifying the beginning of a careful process to handpick participants for such studies that are pivotal in the future of the fight against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

There are currently three Covid-19 vaccines at various stages of development in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on August 15 that along with a plan for mass production, the road map for distribution of vaccines to every Indian was in place.

The three vaccine candidates approved for conducting various stages of human trials by the central drugs controller are Covaxin, developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical

Research (ICMR), Zydus Cadila’s ZYCOV-D and Oxford University and Astrazeneca’s vaccine.

“We needed 100 volunteers but the phone number that we had advertised would not stop ringing. People were even sending requests through Whatsapp texts, which was apart from hundreds of emails that the hospital received from volunteers who wanted to participate in the trial. But we had to stop after a while because even after keeping extra numbers as buffer, the applications overshot the requirement,” said Dr Sanjay Rai, professor, community medicine department, AIIMS, Delhi.

THERE ARE CURRENTLY THREE COVID-19 VACCINES AT VARIOUS STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA