KGMU likely to play role in field trials of Covid-19 vaccines

LUCKNOW: Having successfully treated a few coronavirus positive cases, Lucknow’s prestigious King George Medical University (KGMU) is likely to be roped in for field tests for preventive vaccine for Covid-19 virus developed by a research institute.

“The process for approval from drug controller general of India and other ethical clearances will start soon,” said KGMU doctors on Tuesday.

“A research institute based in Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh is planning to conduct a field study of the vaccine and KGMU will be a key centre for it,” said Prof MLB Bhatt, vice chancellor, KGMU.

He said that the vaccine would be tried upon healthy people to see development of antibody in human.

“The plan is in very initial stages and a lot is to be done before the actual trial begins,” said Dr D Himanshu, senior faculty, KGMU.

There are four stages for a vaccine development.

“In the first phase, the safety of the vaccine is tested on animals, in the second stage, once the first one is clear, the developed vaccine is used on volunteers,” said Prof RK Garg, head, research cell, KGMU.

“Once the safety is tested on volunteers, the trial will be done on random controlled samples from the society where one group will be administered vaccine while the other one will be under watch with vaccine. All this will take a year to reach a conclusive stage,” said Prof Garg, who is also the head of department (HoD) neurology at the medical university.

The next stage will be bringing the vaccine in public domain and studying the adverse reaction on its mass usage.