Covid-19: Serum Institute to halt trial of Oxford vaccine after DCGI notice

On Tuesday, AstraZeneca had decided to stop trials after a participant fell sick with an unexplained illness.

In a major turn of events, the Indian drug regulator on Wednesday issued a show cause notice to Serum Institute of India (SII), which had earlier said it would proceed with clinical trials of AZD1222, the vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford, despite a halt on the same by AstraZeneca in the UK.

On Tuesday, the British-Swedish drug major had decided to stop trials after a participant fell sick with an unexplained illness.

Reacting to the show cause notice, a Serum spokesperson said:

“We were going by the DCGI’s direction, and so far had not been told to