New Delhi: The selection for clinical trials in the 12-18 years is already over and children within this age group have been administered with a single dose of the vaccine. Once the recruitment of children from 6-12 years is done, Aiims New Delhi will begin trials for children between 2 and 6 years.

Prior to Delhi, Aiims Patna started paediatric trials for Covaxin on 12-18 years from June 3.

“After these trials, the age group will be 6-12 years and then 2-6 years but now we have started trials in the age group of 12-18 years,” Dr Prabhat Kumar Singh, director of Aiims Patna said last week adding 54 children had registered for the trials of which 16 belonged to the 12-18 years age group. On May 12, the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) granted permission to conduct the second and the third phase of a clinical trial of Covaxin among children in the 2-18 years group. PTI said on Monday the trial will be conducted in three parts, having 175 volunteers each in 12-18 years, 6-12 years and 2-6 years age groups.

The vaccine will be administered by the intramuscular route in two doses on day 0 and on day 28. The trial will assess the safety, reactogenicity and immunogenicity of the vaccine in children, PTI further reported.

The decision to launch a mass inoculation drive for children comes after the Centre warned that even though the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has not taken a serious shape among them, the impact of the viral disease can increase if there is a change in virus behaviour or epidemiology dynamics.