Bharat Biotech starts human trial of its anti-COVID vaccine at PGI Rohtak

Chandigarh: The human trial of Bharat Biotech's anti-COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin began at Rohtak's Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences on Friday, Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij tweeted.

In his tweet, the minister also said the vaccine has been administered to three persons who have shown no adverse effect to it.

"Human trial with Corona vaccine (COVAXIN) of Bharat Biotech started at PGI Rohtak today," said Vij, who is also the Home and Science & Technology minister.

"Three subjects were enrolled today. All have tolerated the vaccine very well. There were no adverse effects," Vij further said in his tweet.

The minister later told reporters in Ambala that "more vaccine candidates will be enrolled for the trial in coming days".

Bharat Biotech got the country's drug regulator's approval to start clinical trials of its anti-Corona vaccine Covaxin recently.

There are over seven anti-corona vaccines at various stages of development in the country with two of them having received the drug regulator's go-ahead to start the human clinical trials of their vaccines.

Earlier on Wednesday, Drug firm Zydus Cadila had said it has started human clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate ZyCoV-D. In the phase of trials, the company will be enrolling over 1,000 subjects across multiple clinical study sites in India, it had said in a regulatory filing.

Zydus had earlier this month said it it has received approval from authorities to start human trials for its anti-COVID-19 vaccine.

Zydus had got the approval a few days after India''s first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine candidate COVAXIN, developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology, got the nod for human clinical trials from the Drug Controller General of India.

Read also: FIRST: Bharat Biotech Covid-19 vaccine COVAXIN gets DCGI nod for human trials