Delhi HC seeks Centre’s stand on Covaxin trial on children

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to stay the clinical trial of Covaxin in children in the age group of 2 to 18 years, but sought to know the stand of the Centre and the Drugs Controller General of India, on the matter.

A bench comprising Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice to the Centre through the ministries of health and women and child development and asked them to examine the plea and file a reply within a week on a PIL filed by Sanjeev Kumar seeking direction to quash the May 13 order giving permission to Bharat Biotech for such clinical trials. The court posted the matter for further hearing on July 15.

During the trial, which will be conducted on 525 healthy volunteers, vaccine will be given by intramuscular route in two doses on day 0 and day 28, according to the health ministry.

The petitioner apprehends that the children being part of the trial cannot be termed as volunteers as they are not capable of understanding the consequences of the trial and could suffer adverse health or mental effects due to the testing of the vaccine on them. It wants the government to produce details of all the 525 children who will be enrolled in the trial.

Seeking invocation of Section 81 of Juvenile Justice Act, 2015, for penalizing parents who volunteer their children in hopes of monetary compensation, he argued that endangering the life of healthy children would amount to “homicide”.

Kumar said while seeking prosecution of the persons involved in such trials or those authorised to conduct the same, in the event of death or “loss of peaceful and pleasant enjoyment of life” of any of the toddlers or minors who are part of the trial