Phase-III trials of Covid-19 vaccine to begin in '10 days': Asad Umar

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar said on Saturday that Pakistan is all set to participate in the Phase 3 trials of a Chinese developed coronavirus vaccine, ARY News reported.

Taking to Twitter, head of National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) Asad Umar said: “Pakistan will be participating in phase 3 trials of a Chinese developed vaccine for coronavirus”.

“The trials in Pakistan will Inshallah start in about 10 days time,” he added.

Pakistan will be participating in phase 3 trials of a chinese developed vaccine for corona virus. The trials in Pakistan will inshallah start in about 10 days time

— Asad Umar (@Asad_Umar) September 12, 2020

It is pertinent to mention here that Pakistan’s first Phase 3 clinical trial for CanSino’s candidate, Ad5-nCoV, will be led by the government-run National Institute of Health (NIH) along with pharmaceutical company AJM – the local representative of CanSino.

The NIH spokesman had said that the Pakistan Health Research Council (PHRC) has also approved the clinical study, to be carried out in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.

Daily positive cases in Pakistan peaked at more than 6,000 in June, but have since fallen sharply, with only 584 confirmed new cases detected on September 12 – taking its total to 300,955. and 6,373 deaths.

As many as 288,536 Covid-19 patients have recuperated from the disease, pushing the number of active cases down to 6,046. 29,534 samples were tested during the previous 24 hours, out of which 584 turned out to be positive.

Phase-III trials of Chinese Covid-19 vaccine to begin in Pakistan in '10 days': Asad Umar