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A white van passed through the slums of Bhopal, in central India, announcing a COVID-19 vaccine.
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The van reportedly said that anyone who received one would receive 750 rupees.
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But, according to CNN, residents unknowingly were part of a vaccine test.
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It looked like a victory for residents of the slums of Bhopal, in central India, when a white van passed through the streets announcing: “Come and get the coronavirus vaccine and get 750 rupees!” your speaker system.
But according to a new report from CNN, the injections administered were actually part of the third phase of Covaxin’s clinical trials in India – and most recipients were unaware that they were now part of a medical study.
Covaxin is India’s first patented COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has not yet been fully approved for public use and is currently only approved for restricted emergency use. In late January, Bharat Biotech stored more than 20 million doses of Covaxin and is striving to make 700 million by the end of 2021.
Many of the people who received vaccines through the van’s instructions live in the Shankar Nagar slum, a few kilometers from the site of a 1984 industrial disaster that exposed about 500,000 people to a cloud of toxic gas, CNN reported. Some residents of the area still report health problems caused by the incident decades later.
CNN interviewed 21 people in the area who were shot at the trial. Many said they were drawn to receive the vaccine because of the promise of 750 rupees, approximately $ 10 in the United States.
“I went because of the greed of 750 rupees,” Hira Bai, a mother of three, told CNN. “Anyway, we are used to dying … my life is worthless.”
Public health experts said the ethics of providing 750 rupees is questionable, especially if it is used as an incentive to bring in more volunteers.
Arun Shrivastav, head of the pharmacology department at Gandhi Medical College in Bhopal, told CNN that it would be “unethical” and “totally wrong” if the country announced the trial with a promise of 750 rupees.
“If something like this is happening, then it cannot be counted at the trial and the trial will be barred,” Shrivastav told CNN.
Anil Kumar Dixit, dean of the People’s Research and Medical Sciences Center in Bhopal, said his hospital paid 750 rupees to participants, but said it was only to cover any loss of salary and was not an incentive.
Many participants told CNN that they were unaware that they may have received a placebo injection.
Dixit told CNN that everyone involved was informed that the shooting was part of the trial, but more than half of the people CNN spoke to were illiterate and were unable to read any of the instructions or forms provided by health officials.
For those who cannot read, he said, staff explained everything in Hindi or English before participants signed the forms.
Many of Bhopal’s participants noted that they were not asked about the underlying health conditions before participating in the trial. A pregnant woman told CNN that she received the first of two injections before being refused a second dose due to pregnancy.
According to Johns Hopkins University, India is home to the fourth highest COVID-19 mortality in the world, with more than 156,000 registered.
The country is pressing for its health professionals to be vaccinated, but they continue to refuse the vaccine developed at home. According to Al Jazeera, India vaccinated more than 10 million medical professionals, but only 11% of them agreed to take the Covaxin vaccine. The rest opted for an AstraZeneca vaccine.
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