New Delhi: Dr Randeep Guleria, the director of the AIIMS, Delhi, has punctured the much-publicised claim of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) trials to launch India’s first Covid-19 vaccine, COVAXIN, by August 15, as a sort of a sweet revenge for keeping him out of picture in the whole exercise.
As a distinguished pulmonologist (chest & lungs physician), he should have been the first to be involved as a principal investigator, but instead the ICMR picked up an AIIMS professor of preventive and social medicine (PSM). In fact, there is no pulmonologist detailed for the vaccine research.
Dr Guleria, otherwise the front man in the govt's all campaigns on the Coronavirus, got the AIIMS ethics committee reject the protocols drawn up by the ICMR, pointing out discrepancies. The committee has faulted phase II of the trial, noting that there is no document to show affirmative agreement for children to participate in the study though the trials are supposed to be conducted on those in the age group of 12 to 65. The trials cannot start unless the concerned hospitals’ ethics committees okay; 12 have been selected for holding the trials. AIIMS dissent note may trigger similar objections that may hold up the trial.
Every day counts in the trials since the ICMR putting a deadline of August 15 on releasing the vaccine despite protests by numerous researchers on rushing with the trials and risking the lives of millions if such a hurry results in reactions in those taking the vaccine.
