Covaxin to be available for Public by February

New Delhi, 9/12: The Covid 19 Vaccine, Covaxin, by the Hyderabad based company Bharat Biotech Limited being developed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), is likely to be available for use of the general public by the end of February 2021, Dr Sanjay Roy, principal investigator (PI) heading its clinical trial at AIIMS, told IANS on Tuesday.

“We can hope the general population will get their hands on the vaccine doses by February,” he said. Roy also said that two indigenous vaccine candidates which are frontrunners, expected to hit the market shelves before the end of the first quarter of 2021. “The Covishield by Serum Institute of India (SII) is also a frontrunner and also in the third phase of clinical trials. I expect it to be available for public use around the time of Covaxin,” he added.

Covaxin has entered phase III of clinical trials at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here. Roy said that more than 100 volunteers have already received the first dose of the vaccine candidate.