Pakistan has approved a trial of the Code 19 vaccine on humans, and two Chinese companies are working with the Pakistani government to develop the vaccine.
The Drug Regulatory Authority has authorized human testing of the vaccine and is monitoring it at the National Institute of Health Sciences, Islamabad and the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences at Karachi University.
Aga Khan University Hospital, Shaukat Khanum and Indus Hospital are also part of this pilot experiment.
Dr Bari of Indus Hospital told the BBC that the vaccine had been tested in a laboratory before the clinical trial and tested on animals in the second phase. According to him, in the third phase, it will be tested on human beings.
"Healthy volunteers are selected for the test, which is advertised. They are then selected from among the volunteers and given a trial vaccine.
Dr Faisal Mahmood, an infectious disease specialist at the Aga Khan Hospital, told the BBC that a few people were tested first, followed by a few hundred and then thousands to find out what the results of the vaccine were. And does it have any side effects?
"Whatever the vaccine or medicine, the volunteers involved in the trial are not usually hospitalized," he said. They come to the hospital every other day or week where their blood samples and other tests are taken to see how effective the vaccine or medicine is.
On the other hand, a statement issued by the National Institutes of Health said that this would be the first clinical trial of any vaccine in Pakistan and that Chinese companies CanSino Biologics and Beijing Institute of Includes biotechnology.
