AIIMS fails to find enough volunteers for Covaxin trial
The AIIMS here is unable to find the required number of volunteers for the phase-3 trial of Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine, with officials saying people are unwilling to participate in the exercise thinking why take part in a trial when a vaccine would be available soon for everybody.
migrator
New Delhi
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi is one of the sites conducting the final phase of the trial of the vaccine, “Covaxin”, and it needs around 1,500 volunteers for the purpose.
“We wanted 1,500-2,000 participants but so far, we have been able to recruit only around 200 participants. People are unwilling to participate in the exercise thinking why take part in a trial when a vaccine would be available soon for everyone,” Dr Sanjay Rai, professor in the department of community medicine at the AIIMS and also the principal investigator of the study, said. He said volunteers are opting out when the procedure, about it being a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled trial in which 50 per cent would be administered the shot while the other 50 per cent would receive the placebo, is being explained to them.
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