Done/ALVI Kanpur: The trial of Covid vaccine for children aged between 2-18 years began in the city’s private hospital.
Children, who volunteered for the trial, were administered Covaxin under the guidance of expert doctors on Wednesday.
In the last two days, 15 children have been administered the first dose of Covaxin, said principal investigator for Covaxin trial for children, Dr JS Kushwaha while talking to TOI.
Dr Kushwaha said that children between 2 years and 18 years of age have been divided into three groups—12-18, 6-12 and 2-6 years age groups for carrying out the trial.
To begin with, children between 12-18 age were given the first Covaxin dose, he said, adding that the second dose would be administered to them after 28 days and thereafter their blood sample would be collected to check out whether antibodies have developed or not.
Dr Kushwaha said that soon the first dose of the vaccine would be administered to children of the 6-12 age group followed by trials on the age group of two to six years.
“We have already conducted successful trials of Covaxin on adults at the hospital in 2020.
We are hopeful that this trial too would be successful,” he said.
The trial is being done under the guidance of paediatricians.
The kids, who have volunteered are wards of doctors or those belonging to the medical fraternity, Dr Kushwaha further said.
The first the health screening of the children was done before administering them the first dose, he added.