Covid vaccine trials to be held at Karachi's Expo Centre

KARACHI:

The Sindh government announced on Thursday that it would be setting up a vaccination facility at the Expo Centre in Karachi, selecting it as one of the sites where the clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine developed by Chinese CanSinoBio would be carried out.

Phase-III of the trial was initiated in Pakistan on October 13, 2020, after the Ministry of National Health Services Regulation and Coordination received formal approval from the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP).

As the provincial government decided to set up a vaccination facility for the trial at the Expo Centre, Sindh Health Minister Azra Fazl Pechhuho visited the site and reviewed arrangement being made in that regard.

She assured that facilities for cold chain storage and other necessary requirements would soon be made available at the centre, adding that vaccines would be administered in phases there.

Besides, she issued instructions for compiling the data of frontline health workers who would be deployed at the facility.

Confirming these details, the health department spokesperson said that vaccines were expected to arrive in Pakistan within the first three months of 2021, before which the Sindh government intended to finalise a strategy for conducting trial in the province.

Meanwhile, Sindh health secretary volunteered himself for the trial underway at The Indus Hospital (IHS) in Karachi. Currently, the trial is being conducted at the IHS and Aga Khan University Hospital in the city.

According to Dr Naseem Salahuddin, the head of infectious diseases department at IHS, only persons above the age of 18 are being vaccinated as part of the trial, after medical examinations.

“This is because care needs to needs to be taken that any person being vaccinated is healthy and has not contracted the coronavirus in the past,” Dr Salahuddin explained.

She said the trial would continue at the hospital for at least another eight to 10 days, adding that over 50 volunteers had been visiting the healthcare facility daily to get vaccinated during phase-III of the trial.

According to her, almost 15,000 people have been vaccinated so far during the ongoing trial, with 3,000 of them having been inoculated at the IHS.

She maintained that the vaccine had proved to be completely safe, further stating that teams at the hospital would stay in touch with persons administered the vaccine until conclusive findings were made regarding its results.

Who can be vaccinated?

According to the staff at the IHS, healthy person older than 18 years and not having any illness, especially cancer, are eligible for vaccination. They should be admitted to a hospital during three months preceding vaccination and pregnant women, too, cannot be vaccinated, they said, adding that the volunteers shouldn’t have a mental illness or be addicted to drugs.

Those administered any vaccine during two weeks preceding the trial of have had a blood transfusion during three months preceding the trial are also not eligible for vaccination.

Besides, volunteers must not be allergic to the vaccine and following the vaccination, should not be inoculated by any other vaccine, even if for Covid-19.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2021.