Indians to get free shots of coronavirus vaccine in 73 days: Report
India has its eyes on its first coronavirus vaccine, and it may get one very soon. Covishield, the Oxford University-Astra Zeneca vaccine candidate, will be commercialized in 73 days, a Business Today report said. Indians will be immunized free under the National Immunization Programme (NIP), it further mentioned. Phase III trials of the vaccine are being handled by the Serum Institute of India. Quoting sources, the report said that the company has entered into an "exclusive agreement with Astra Zeneca to buy rights and pay a royalty fee for exclusively selling it in India and 92 other countries.
The Phase III trials began on August 22 at 20 centres in India, predominantly in Pune and Mumbai in Maharashtra and Ahmedabad in Gujarat. Under this crucial phase, the vaccine will be administered to 1,600 people.
The Centre has already indicated to SII that it will directly procure the vaccines and is planning to immunise Indians for free, the report said.
The government has also sought 68 crore doses for 130 crore Indian citizens from the Serum Institute by June next year, it added."The government has given us a "special manufacturing priority license" and fast-tracked the trial protocol processes to get the trials completed in 58 days. By this, the first dosing is happening from today in the final phase (Phase III) and the second dosing will happen after 29 days. The final trial data will be out in another 15 days from the second dosing. By what time, we are planning to commercialise Covishield," a Serum Institute of India (SII) top official told Business Today.
Apart from Covishield, ICMR-Bharat Biotech's 'Covaxin' and Zydus Cadila's 'ZyCoV-D' are also in the race. Both the vaccine candidates are in human clinical trials in phase-I and II simultaneously.
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