Several vaccine candidates are undergoing final clinical trials for Covid-19. In India, three vaccine candidates are under clinical trials at present, although none of them are of intranasal type. Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister said on Sunday, October 18, that as no such vaccine has been introduced yet, the Serum Institute of India is launching a new intranasal vaccine for Covid-19, which is currently under production.

He gave the example of Flumist nasal spray which is an influenza vaccine that is sprayed into the nose. A similar approach has been introduced by the Serum Institute of India, which is known as Codagenix CDX 005 which is a live attenuated vaccine to work against SARS-CoV-2.

This discussion took place on Vardhan’s social media platform where he answered some questions related to the Covid-19 vaccine as a part of the ‘Sunday Samvaad’. He said – “Pre-clinical animal studies have already been completed and Codagenix of Serum Institute of India, expects to initiate a phase 1 clinical, first in human trials, in the United Kingdom by the end of 2020. Further, Serum India plans to undertake clinical developments of this vaccine candidate in India.”

The minister further added that apart from this, Bharat Biotech allied with the Washington University School of Medicine, with which they will be introducing an intranasal vaccine for Covid-19, will be responsible for its production and marketing.  The phase I clinical trials for this vaccine will take place at St. Louis University in the USA , in its Vaccine and Treatment evaluation unit while the later stages of clinical trials will take place in India.

Another important detail of the Covid-19 vaccine given by Vardhan was that the vaccine will be available for the pediatric age group as well, as the clinical trials have been conducted on people in the age group of 12 to 65 years.

As per a statement given by Dr. K Srinath Reddy, founder of the Public Health Foundation of India, it is too early to predict the results of vaccines that are still in their phase I and phase II clinical trials. He also said that the concrete data on the vaccine’s efficiency and safety can only be made available after it has entered and completed its final phase III trials.

The author is a student member of Amity Centre of Happiness.