Vaccines for children may be available by September: National Institute of Virology. By PTI |Aug 18, 2021, 10:58 PM IST (Published)

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Vaccines for children may be available by September and the trials for inoculating those between 2 to 18 years are underway, Priya Abraham, Director of the National Institute of Virology has said.

Vaccines for children may be available by September and the trials for inoculating those between 2 to 18 years are underway, Priya Abraham, Director of the National Institute of Virology has said.

In an interview to India Science, an OTT platform of the Department of Science and Technology, Abraham said phase 2/3 clinical trials are in process for those between 2 to 18 years of age. "Hopefully the results will be available soon and they will be presented to regulators. Probably by September or just after September, we may have a vaccine for children this is Covaxin," she said.

The trials for Zydus Cadila are on and the vaccine can be made available for inoculating children. "Even that (Zydus Cadila vaccine) will be available," she said. The NIV is a body under the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) under the Ministry of Health. Last month, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had told BJP MPs that Covid vaccination for children is likely to start soon.

Currently, only those who are 18 or above are eligible for vaccination against coronavirus. On other vaccine candidates, Abraham said apart from Zydus Cadila, which will be the first DNA vaccine, another vaccine from Gennova, which is an mRNA vaccine, vaccine candidate of Biological E and Novavax, which will be manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, are in the pipeline.