Coronavirus | Bengal Minister becomes first volunteer to take ‘Covaxin’ in phase III trial in State

At least 1,000 volunteers will be administered the Covaxin vaccine in the Phase III trial in Kolkata

Firhad Hakim.

The Phase 3 regulatory trial of Covaxin started at the ICMR-National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases here on Wednesday.

 

State Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim became the first volunteer to get a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine in the State.

 

The Minister, who chairs the Board of Administrators of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, is among the 100 volunteers who will be administered Covaxin. “I feel I am quite lucky to be part of the trial. I am absolutely okay after taking the shot,” he told presspersons.

 

The Phase 3 trial was inaugurated by Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar who among other issues raised the non-implementation of Ayushman Bharat scheme in West Bengal.

 

Meanwhile, even as the number of daily infections in the State has dropped West Bengal is still recording more than 50 deaths. The State recorded 51 deaths in the past 24 hours taking the COVID-19 toll in the State to 8,527. With 11 more deaths the number of COVID-19 fatalities in North 24 Parganas increased crossed 2000 and reached 2,010. Kolkata recorded 12 deaths due to the contagious viral infection taking the toll in the city to 2,628

 

The State recorded 3,271 cases of new COVID-19 infection taking the total number of infections to 4,90,070, The State is still testing less than 50,000 samples. The samples tested in the past 24 hours is 42,624 and the percentage of positive cases out of samples tested 8.22%.