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A white minibus drove through the slums of Bhopal in central India to advertise a COVID-19 vaccine.
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The van apparently said that anyone who gets one would receive 750 rupees.
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But according to CNN, the residents were unknowingly part of a vaccine trial.
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Related: COVID-19 vaccines travel the world
It seemed like a win-win to residents in the slums of Bhopal in India when a white van drove through the streets advertising: “Come take the coronavirus vaccine and get 750 rupees!” from its speaker system.
But according to a new CNN report, the shots were actually part of the third phase of Indian clinical trials – and most recipients were completely unaware that they were now part of a medical study.
Covaxin is the first own COVID-19 vaccine in India. The vaccine has yet to be fully approved for public use and is currently only approved for limited emergency use. At the end of January, Bharat Biotech had stored more than 20 million doses of Covaxin and would earn 700 million by 2021.
Many of the people who received the vaccine through the van live in the Shankar Nagar slum, just miles from the site of an industrial disaster in 1984 that left an estimated 500,000 people exposed to a cloud of toxic gas. it, reports CNN. Some residents in the area report that they still feel health problems decades later.
CNN conducted interviews with 21 people in the area who were shot during the trial. Many said they were attracted to get the vaccine because of the promise of 750 rupees, about $ 10 in the US.
“I went because of the greed of 750 rupees,” Hira Bai, a mother of three, told CNN. “Anyway, we’m used to dying … my life has no value.”
Public health experts said the ethics of providing 750 rupees could be questioned, especially if used as an incentive to raise more volunteers.
Arun Shrivastav, head of the pharmacology department at Gandhi Medical College in Bhopal, told CNN it would be ‘unethical’ and ‘completely wrong’ if the country advertised the trial with a promise of 750 rupees.
“If something like this happens, it cannot be counted in the trial and the trial will be banned,” Shrivastav told CNN.
Anil Kumar Dixit, dean of the People’s College of Medical Sciences and Research Center in Bhopal, confirmed that his hospital paid 750 rupees to the participants, but said it was only to cover missed wages and was not intended as a incentive not.
Many participants told CNN that they were not aware that they were getting a placebo recording.
Dixit told CNN that those involved were well aware that the shots were part of the trial, but more than half of the people CNN spoke to were illiterate and could not read any instructions or forms provided by health officials.
For those who could not read, he said officials explained everything in Hindi or English before participants signed any forms.
Many of the Bhopal participants noted that they were not asked about underlying health conditions before participating in the trial. One pregnant woman told CNN she received the first of two injections before being turned away for the second dose due to pregnancy.
According to Johns Hopkins University, India is home to the fourth most COVID-19 deaths in the world, with more than 156,000 recorded.
The country insists that its health workers be vaccinated, but the health workers continue to reject the homemade vaccine. According to Al Jazeera, India has vaccinated more than 10 million medical professionals, but only 11% of them have agreed to take the Covaxin shot. The rest opted for an AstraZeneca vaccine.
Read the original article on Insider