India’s second Covid-19 vaccine candidate begins human trials
At a time when cases of corona infection are increasing rapidly in the country, a good news has come. India’s pharmaceutical company Zydus Cadila has announced on Wednesday that it has started a human trial of its made DNA vaccine ZYCoV-D. The first patient was given a vaccine dose under the trial. The approval was given last month by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI). The company was told that the first human dose trial has been started with a thousand volunteers, in which the first and second phases of these human clinical trials will be completed one after the other. The company said that ZYCoV-D , the plasmid based DNA vaccine has been considered safe. Prior to this, clinical trials of this corona vaccine have shown good results of immunity.
Just a few days ago, the Zydus Cadila company was granted a human trial permit. According to the Clinical Trial Registry – India (CTRI), the clinical study is based on two criteria – inclusion and exclusion. In Phase 1, the company selected healthy men and women (non-pregnant and non-breastfeeding) between the ages of 18–55 years. Volunteers have to follow the trial process and be available for the followup period. In this sequence, for Phase 2, healthy volunteers of any gender of 12 years or more will be selected.
Remdesivir, which is helpful in preventing corona, is currently available in India. DCGI has given permission to Cipla and Hetero Healthcare to manufacture Remdesivir. This is to be used during the emergency. M Srinivas Reddy, managing director of Hetero Healthcare, said, “It is a significant achievement for us to introduce Covifor in India. There is a lot of pressure on the medical infrastructure at the moment due to the increasing cases of Covid-19.” Let’s say Covifor is the first generic version of Remdesvir. The company said in a statement that it can be used to treat admitted patients from adults and children, due to serious infections in hospitals. Hetero Labs has prepared 20 thousand vials of Covifor (Remdesivir) and sent it to 5 states of India. These include Hyderabad, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
