The King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital’s research centre at Vadu in Pune district will start Covid-19 vaccine trials for the age group of 12-18 years from Monday. The first dose of the Covavax vaccine is to be administered to at least 8 minors. Pending the protection outcomes for this test the group, trials of the vaccine for minors, whilst young as 2 years old will commence.
After KEM, Bharati Vidyapeeth hospital may even start trials in a month’s time.
Covavax, that's mainly evolved via way of means of US firm, Novavax Inc, may be mass-produced by Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) particularly for the below-18-yr age group. This is the fourth vaccine to be accredited for medical trials withinside the country and, Pune’s KEM centre at Vadu has additionally been decided on for Phase II and Phase III trials.
Dr Avinash Badvekar, principal investigator at the KEM centre said, “We will be starting phase two trials for safety from Monday, and we would vaccinate 25 in total, but at least eight on the first day. Once the safety trial results are out for this age group then phase II would continue, and then it would proceed to a lower age group of about two years. We had sent out applications for parents who would want their children to participate in the trial.”