Patna: Bharat Biotech has started paediatric trials of its COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Patna.
The Drugs Controller General of India last month approved clinical trials of Covaxin among children and teenagers aged 2 to 18 years.
Trials on children will be carried out on 525 subjects at various sites, including AIIMS Delhi.
“The vaccine is developed using Whole-Virion Inactivated Vero Cell derived platform technology. Inactivated vaccines do not replicate and are therefore unlikely to revert and cause pathological effects. They contain dead virus, incapable of infecting people but still able to instruct the immune system to mount a defensive reaction against an infection,” stated Bharat Biotech, which has developed Covaxin indigenously in collaboration with ICMR.
Covaxin is among three COVID vaccines being used in India’s inoculation drive, Covishield and Russian Sputnik V being the others.
