Want to volunteer for vaccine trials?

Every company, Zydus Cadila, Bharat Biotech and Oxford, all of them are looking for volunteers and each has their own criteria. The pre-condition for all -  only healthy people who have not been exposed to infection, can volunteer for clinical trials of vaccines.

In the first phase of clinical trials for Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila, volunteers have to be in the age of 18 to 55 though people having high blood pressure, asthma or any other allergies cannot participate.

Oxford has set the minimum age for enrollment in clinical trials to 18 years while Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadila have reduced the minimum age to 12 years and extended maximum to 65 years.

Volunteers are required to give their consent (audio and visual format) after the complete procedure has been explained thoroughly. No volunteers are paid for participating in clinical trials of any vaccine. A pre-approved standard has been set which compensate for food and travel expenses. 

But what about the risk” What if the vaccine is not working? All the companies have one assurance at this stage of the trial – these are safe and do not lead to extreme and adverse reactions as vaccines are tested before on animals that have similar genetic coding. It is only after getting the approvals can the company start with clinical trials among humans.

And in the unforeseen event of something going wrong, if any volunteer dies or has other issues, he/she will get a compensation, which will be between Rs 2 lakh to Rs 74 lakhs, depending on many conditions.