New Delhi: The Covid-19 vaccine being developed by India will go through clinical trials in Bangladesh.
Addressing the virtual weekly press briefing here on Thursday, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, “From October 17-19, a delegation of the concerned departments visited Bangladesh and had fruitful discussions with their Bangladeshi counterparts on the current stage of vaccine development in India and modalities of clinical trials in Bangladesh.”
The concerned officials of the two sides have had a virtual interaction on Myanmar’s interest in cooperation on Covid-19 vaccines.
As the situation with respect to vaccine development evolves, the sides will discuss and decide on modalities of cooperation.
On trials in other countries, Mr Srivastava said, “In due course, depending on the trials in India, we propose to expand our cooperation with other countries also in clinical trials and capacity building for vaccine development, production and delivery.”
On September 26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly had said India’s vaccine production and delivery capacity will be used to help all humanity in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.
“India will also help all the countries in enhancing their cold chain and storage capacities for the delivery of vaccines,” he had said.
In this regard, “We have organised two training modules for our neighbouring countries in which about 90 health experts and scientists have participated. We propose to expand these programmes to include other interested countries,” the spokesperson added.
India’s indigenous Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin being developed by Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) - National Institute of Virology (NIV), has received approval for conducting final phase trials.
The Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) permitted the Hyderabad-based firm to initiate Phase 3 trials.
The Phase 3 trials for Covaxin are likely to start next month.
Applying for approval on October 2, Bharat Biotech told DCGI that the study will involve 28,500 volunteers from ten states.
The subjects will be given two doses of the experimental vaccine within a gap of 28 days.
