Mumbai’s Nair Hospital submits protocol for clinical trials of Covishield

BYL Nair hospital at Mumbai Central on Monday submitted its protocol to run clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine-also known as COVISHIELD- to its ethics committee. Once approved, the protocol will be sent to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for a final green nod.

HT Image

Last week, ICMR selected Nair and Parel-based KEM hospitals to undertake human trials to determine the efficacy of COVISHIELD, considered promising after results of phase 1 trial conducted in the United Kingdom against the novel coronavirus.

“We have to decide on the age of the volunteers who want to be part of the trial along with the selection process. We cannot randomly select volunteers, and therefore we need to set out standard operating procedures before we can start the trial. Once the ethics committee of the college approves it, ICMR has to give us the final permission,” said Dr Ramesh Bharmal, dean of the hospital. “It will take two-three days before the ethics committee reviews and approves the protocol.”

KEM hospital dean Dr Hemant Deshmukh did not respond to calls and messages from HT.