India trials of COVID-19 vaccine going on, says Serum Institute

New Delhi, Sep 09: Serum Institute of India (SII) on Wednesday said it is continuing with the trials of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine candidate in India.

The statement came after AstraZeneca announced that late-stage studies of the COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by the Oxford University are on temporary hold as a UK participant had an adverse reaction to it.

SII has entered into a manufacturing partnership with AstraZeneca to produce and supply 1 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. It is doing the clinical trials of the potential vaccine in India.

Commenting on the recent reports on AstraZeneca halting the trials in the UK, SII said in a statement: "We can't comment much on the UK trials, but they have been paused for further review and they hope to restart soon."

It further said: "As far as Indian trials are concerned, it is continuing and we have faced no issues at all".

Last month, the Drug Controller General of India had granted permission to the Pune-based SII to conduct Phase-II and -III human clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca.