New Delhi: Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij this morning tweeted he did not ignore any protocol after testing positive for coronavirus on Saturday.
Rebuffing a media report that he kept meeting people after testing positive for the highly infectious virus, he tweeted: "The report that I kept meeting people is totally wrong. Half and hour after testing positive, I was admitted to Ambala hospital."
"Half an hour after coming positive, I was admitted to the Civil Hospital, Ambala Cantonment," he tweeted this morning.
Mr Vij, on Saturday, had tweeted that he tested positive for the virus. The minister contracted the virus two weeks after receiving "the first dose" of the two-shot coronavirus vaccine by Bharat Biotech, the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical firm which has developed Covaxin, India's first indigienous vaccine for the highly infectious coronavirus.
Shortly after his tweet, Bharat Biotech had put out a statement that its Covaxin vaccine has been designed to be effective if a person takes two doses.
"Covaxin clinical trials are based on a 2-dose schedule, given 28 days apart. The vaccine efficacy will be determined 14 days post the 2nd dose," the Hyderabad firm said in an official statement. One of the three Covid vaccine candidates being tested in India, Covaxin - in its third phase of trials- will be administered to "26,000 subjects across 25 sites", the statement read.
"The phase 3 trials are double blinded and randomised, where 50 per cent of subjects will receive vaccine and 50 per cent of subjects will receive placebo," the firm underlined.
On November 20, Mr Vij participated in the third phase trial of Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. At the time he announced that he will be the first volunteer in his state for the vaccine trials.
Covaxin has been evaluated in about 1,000 subjects in the first two phases of clinical trials, with promising safety and immunogenicity data.