China’s COVID-19 Vaccine: Third phase trial in Bangladesh

Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese company Sinovac Research and Development Co Ltd. Photo taken from UNB via The Daily Star/Asia News Network

DHAKA — Bangladesh Medical Research Council has approved the phase-III clinical trial of a Chinese vaccine for Covid-19 treatment.

The executive committee of BMRC approved it in a meeting on Saturday after a month-long review by its ethics committee, its Director Mahmood-uz-jahan told this newspaper yesterday.

“We have not issued any official letter in this regard. We have just approved it in our Saturday’s executive meeting,” he said.

The trial would be conducted on around 4,200 healthcare staffers working in seven Covid-19 hospitals from August for the next 18 months, sources said.

International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), and the inventor Chinese company — Sinovac Research and Development Limited — will jointly conduct the trial.

According to the US Center for Disease Control (US-CDC), the general stages of the development cycle of a vaccine are: exploratory stage, pre-clinical stage, clinical development, regulatory review and approval, manufacturing and quality control.

Phase-III clinical trial means the vaccine is at its final stage of major trials in which the vaccine is given to thousands of people and tested for efficacy and safety.

The hospitals where the trial will be conducted are: Mugda General Hospital, two units (unit 1 and 2) of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Kurmitola General Hospital, Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital, Kuwait Bangladesh Friendship Government Hospital, and Mohanagar General Hospital.

“The vaccine will be administered to the healthcare staffers who are not infected with Covid-19 as they are exposed to the disease. It will be examined whether and how much antibodies against Covid-19 grow in their bodies,” said the BMRC director.

Researchers around the world are developing more than 155 vaccines against the coronavirus, and 23 vaccines are in human trials, according to New York Times newspaper.

Of them, four are in phase-III clinical trials while only one vaccine, invented by Oxford University team, has been approved for limited use in human.

The icddr,b, is also conducting an efficacy trial of Ivermectin, a drug used for parasitic roundworm infections.