Serum Institute to start human trials of Oxford Vaccine

Amid the anticipation on the results of Oxford University’s Covid vaccine, the Serum Institute of India has tied up with Oxford to start human trial of the vaccine in India next month. Despite the results not being confirmed the Serum Institute has also said that it will produce one billion doses of the vaccine. It will be available for India as well as other middle and low income countries. The UK has also reserved an order of 90 million doses of the vaccine.

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The Oxford University is making the vaccine in collaboration with British-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca. It is being developed by the Jenner Institute. The vaccine is already in phase II/III trails in different countries across the world. Now, it will begin the human trial in India in August. It has shown positive results so far.

“Apart from AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine and Codagenix, we have associated with multiple institutions worldwide as manufacturing partners for vaccine candidates that are being developed. These include Austria's Themis along with two others,” Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla said.

This is the third vaccine to begin with human trials in India. Earlier this month, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Zydus Cadila’s ZyCov-D had got approval for human trials in India. The clinical trial of Covaxin has been started today at AIIMS. Bharat Biotech is making the vaccine in collaboration with Indian Council for Medical Research. It had earlier claimed that it will prepare a vaccine by August 15.

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ZyCov-D is also supposed to start human trials soon. There are majorly seven firms which are working to find a vaccine. Bharat Biotech, Serum Institute, Zydus Cadila, Panacea Biotec, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax and Biological E are currently working on vaccines.

The coronavirus cases across the world are over 14 million with nearly 6 million deaths. In India, the positive cases have reached around 1.1 million with nearly 27 thousand deaths.

Written By Rashi, She is doing her Masters in Convergent Journalism from Jamia AJK MCRC, New Delhi.

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