Upon receiving approval on Tuesday to hold trials for the Oxford Covishield vaccine candidate, Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital has initiated the screening of participants before undergoing trials. This was permitted by the Maharashtra ethics committee to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation-run KEM hospital to perform phase II and III trials for the Oxford Covishield vaccine candidate. Information provided by Dr Hemant Deshmukh to PTI mentioned that along the committee’s post-approval, the screening for participants would commence today onwards, requiring a hundred participants minimally.

“We need an adult without prior infection, including coronavirus. Starting tomorrow (Wednesday), we will screen people and hopefully will be able to give doses to 3-4 people every day as part of the ongoing trial. We need to keep a volunteer under observation for an hour after administering the vial,” he said.

Monday also saw the start of the vaccine clinical trials in phase-III at the state-run Sassoon General Hospital in Maharashtra. On September 11, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had directed SII to suspend any new recruitment in phase II and III clinical trials until further orders were given. This was exercised following AstraZeneca’s paused trials in other countries due to “an unexplained illness” in a volunteer involved with the study. The DCGI once again granted the permission on September 15 for trial resumption. For the manufacture of the COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Oxford, there has been a partnership between the Pune-based SII and the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.