ICMR: Clinical trials reveal India’s vaccines effective against Covid-19 variants

Photo Credits: PTI

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Thursday spoke about the interim results of the current clinical trials indicate that the Covid-19 vaccines made in India are effective against Covid-19 variants with mutated virus strains discovered in United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa.

While addressing the webinar on an international level, “Kerala Health:Making the SDG A Reality,” initiated by the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala, Dr Balaram Bhargava, Director General of ICMR said a paper deciphering Covaxin’s neutralization potential for the UK strain which has been approved for publication.

He said for the cases of Covid-19 variants identified in South Africa and Brazil, attempts are being made to isolate the mutated strains of the virus from the subjected travelers from the two countries for sampling.

The third clinical trial for Covaxin BB152 has been finished with the doses being administered to the 25,800 volunteers participating in the trials. “The interim analysis report should be out in a week,” he said.

Dr Bharagava said that India holds to be the fifth country in the world for isolating the Covid-19 virus which is a part of developing the vaccine against the pandemic. He added, “India had from the outside resisted the temptation of going for herd immunity unlike many European countries, including the UK and Italy, and its decision had been vindicated from what happened in the western nations that allowed the pandemic to spread.”

(With agency inputs)

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