LAHORE: The coronavirus positivity rate in Punjab remained 3.73%, as out of 12,955 tests conducted across the province during the last 24 hours, 484 people were tested positive with 12 more fatalities taking the provincial tally of cases to 162,875, the second highest in the country and death toll to 4,994.
With recovery of 651 more people, the number of recovered patients has reached 150,638 in the province. On the other hand, 1,481 recoveries were recorded across Pakistan in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries in the country to 518,164.
As per break up of virus cases and deaths due to corona in major cities of the province, Lahore has so far reported 82384 cases and 1980 deaths, Rawalpindi 14272 cases and 846 deaths, Faisalabad 9293 cases and 457 deaths, Gujranwala 4495 cases and 113 deaths, Gujrat 4344 cases and 80 deaths, Bahawalpur 4117 cases and 144 deaths, Multan 9273 cases and 346 deaths and Sargodha reported 3082 cases and 133 deaths.
Moreover, the University of Health Sciences (UHS) is all set to launch the phase-III trial of another Chinese coronavirus vaccine from next week. Earlier, the UHS ran the trial of Can Sino vaccine developed by Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in which 18,000 volunteers were registered and the vaccine is in the follow-up stage at the moment.
UHS Vice Chancellor Prof. Javed Akram said in a briefing that the National Bio-Ethics Committee had approved a phase-III (involving humans) randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in local population with 18 years of age and above to determine the safety and efficacy of "ZF2001" - a recombinant novel coronavirus vaccine for prevention of Covid-19.
A double-blind study is one in which neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is receiving a particular treatment. This procedure is utilized to prevent bias in research results.
"We are expecting the trial's approval from Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) during this week after which the recruitment of volunteer will start," Prof Javed Akram said, adding that a total of one thousand volunteers would be registered for the trial.
He further said that three doses of the jab would be administered to each volunteer in three months after which the trial would enter the follow-up stage. He said that each volunteer would have to visit the trial site seven times during the three months for which he or she would be paid an amount of Rs 16,000 for travel and food expenses. The trial would be completed in 18 months, he added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
Comments
Comments are closed.