A potential vaccine to prevent Chikunguniya (CHIKV) made by Bharat Biotech has entered Phase-1 human trials.

Announcing this, the Hyderabad-based vaccine developer says clinical trials are underway to evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of the vaccine.

The placebo controlled study involves 60 healthy volunteers.

Bharat Biotech developed the vaccine using an isolate of the virus from Indian epidemic. The in-activated version was made by the in-house research and development scientists. It was found safe and immuno-genic in pre-clinical animal tests, according to a press release.

The candidate vaccine was approved by the Drug Controller General for Phase-I clinical trials in 2016. According to Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director, "Our pre-clinical studies were promising and we hope that the first in human clinical trials successfully meets with the clinical end points."

Chikunguniya, according to the WHO, has been identified in 60 countries. It is a viral disease, which is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes, including Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus.

Bharat Biotech had filed patent for CHIKV in 2007 and followed it up with a second one in 2011. Patents have been granted in US, Europre, China, Indonesia, South Africa and the vaccine is in national phase in several other countries, the release stated.

The bone breaking mosquito borne viral fever, which caused the major epidemic in 2006, possibly entered India from the Indian Ocean islands. Bharat Biotech was the first Indian company to have isolated and characterised the epidemic causing strain.

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