20 children successfully undergo trials of indigenous ZyCoV-D vaccine at Karnataka hospital

BELAGAVI: Jeevan Rekha Hospital in Belagavi has successfully conducted the first-phase clinical trials of the country's second indigenously-developed COVID-19 vaccine, ZyCoV-D, on 20 children between the age of 12 and 18 years.

None of the children who underwent the clinical trials are having any side effects or other health complications two months after the vaccines were administered to them, said Dr Amit Bhate, Director of Jeevan Rekha Hospital.
   
The hospital was also one of the 12 centres in the country where clinical trials of Covaxin took place successfully last year.

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Speaking to The New Indian Express, Dr Bhate said the doctors of his hospital were keeping a tab on the condition of all the 20 children for the past two months at regular intervals and found that they were healthy. All the children had been administered three ZyCoV-D doses each during the clinical trials.

He said the parents of all the children had brought them voluntarily to make them undergo the clinical trials. "The audio and video consent of the parents of all 20 children has been taken before they are made to undergo the trials. We are happy and content that all the kids responded well to the trials," Dr Bhate said.

The blood samples and antibodies in all the children would be tested regularly for the next 12 months before coming to a conclusion about the success of ZyCoV-D vaccine for the children before it is made available for all the children by the authorities.

Given the success of the clinical trials so far, the ZyCoV-D clinical trials on children taking place at 30 centres across the country would also be certainly successful, said Dr Bhate.