Volunteers lineup for COVID-19 vaccine trials in Visakhapatnam

Amid the rising COVID-19 cases and deaths in Visakhapatnam, the human trials for the COVID-19 vaccine – Covishield have been initiated on Monday at Andhra Medical College- King George Hospital (KGH).

In a total of six sessions or visits to the hospital, KGH aims to administer the vaccine to around 100 volunteers, with the volunteer registration beginning today. A volunteer should be more than 18 years old and should not have been diagnosed with COVID-19 to be eligible for the vaccine trial. As per our sources, additionally, the volunteer should not have had contact with anyone else who has tested positive for COVID-19 and should not have any medical ailments. In a day, three to four people will be given the vaccine dose.

The volunteers will have to visit the hospital to administer the vaccine around 5-6 times over the next 15-20 days. Each volunteer’s blood sample will the collected on the 57th, 90th, and 180th days after administering them with the vaccine.

As per sources, the gap between the first and second visits, for vaccine regulation, should be two days, 28 days between the second and third visits, 30 days between the third and fourth visits, 30 days between the fourth and fifth visits, and the final visit after 90 days.

In Visakhapatnam, the vaccine trials will be given to volunteers randomly. However, all volunteers will have to undergo preliminary tests for two days.

The COVID-19 vaccine Covisheild was developed jointly by the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute and AstraZeneca. The human trials for Covishield are being conducted by the Serum Insititute of India (SII) across 17 different cities in the country.

As of 4th October 2020, the total number of active COVID-19 cases in Vizag district was 3,337. While the death toll rose to 416, 47,808 individuals were discharged after recovering from the virus.