By Asmau Ahmad
Bangladesh’s first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine has obtained clearance for a human trial in phase I.
The Bangavax vaccine, developed by a local pharmaceutical company, Globe Biotech, on Sunday received clearance from the Directorate General of Drug Administration.
The drug administration under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare gave the clearance after relevant authorities had reviewed all the documents on all the previous trials.
“We ‘ve got the approval for phase I clinical trial of Bangavax,’’ Mohammad Mohiuddin, a senior official at Globe Biotech, said.
He said the trial would be conducted among 60 healthy volunteers at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University hospital in Dhaka.
In November last year, Bangavax, a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine, got ethical clearance from the Bangladesh Medical Research Council for a human trial on up to 64 healthy adult participants.
Globe Biotech applied for approval for a human trial on Nov. 1 last year, saying its vaccine had yielded “good results’’ in trials on monkeys. The vaccine can reportedly be stored at a temperature of four degrees Celsius for one month and of -20 degrees Celsius for up to six months.
