Children are likely to be inoculated against coronavirus after September, according to two officials involved in the development of the vaccines. Bharat Biotech’s managing director Krishna Ella told DD News that the trial phase of the clinical studies in volunteers in the 2-18 age group has been completed.

Currently, India is testing two vaccine candidates among children, Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin and Zydus Cadila’s ZyCov-D. The Covaxin trial includes 525 volunteers while ZyCov-D’s trials – as part of the phase II/III clinical studies – includes 1,000 volunteers in the 12-18 age group.

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Ella said that their clinical trial final phase was over and they are hoping to get a license for vaccine in kids by month end or by next month. “If approved, this is the only vaccine in the world that can be given to children between 2 and 18 years,” Ella said in an interview to DD News.

A senior official from Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune, who collaborated with Bharat Biotech, expects the results to be out soon.

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Priya Abraham, director of NIV, Pune, in an interview to India Science, a web channel of the government’s Department of Science and Technology, said the results of the trials will be released very soon and presented to the regulators. “So, by September or just after it, we may have COVID-19 vaccines for children,” she added.

Experts at India’s drug regulator are assessing ZyCov-D’s data for approval. The company has said its assessment of the clinical trials showed an efficacy rate of 66.6%.

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An expert aware of the process said early data has shown some promise. “There are a few promising data sets that the experts are examining that includes the vaccine candidate of Zydus Cadila, which has been tried in around 1,000 children. Then there is data from Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin trial in children that people are anticipating,” this person said, asking not to be named.