SA Covid-19 vaccine trials get into gear

With Covid-19 clinical trials this week expected to reach KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, South Africa’s ramping up of its participation in the massive global campaign to test the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines moved into gear.

According to Wits University’s executive director of the Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit, professor Shabir Madhi – leading the Ox1nCov19 trial in South Africa – the move to KZN and the Free State followed near completion of vaccine trials in Gauteng and in the Western Cape – provinces that were earlier this year hardest hit by the spread of the pandemic.

“Trials are currently under way in four provinces, with the first trial to be completed in a month and another in two months,” said Madhi. KZN and the Free State will hopefully start this week, or early next week. Research vaccine studies currently under way are those from the University of Oxford and Novavax.

“The third to start later this month is the Johnson & Johnson vaccine trial headed by the SA Medical Research Council (SAMRC) president and CEO Dr Glenda Gray. In the country, Oxford has about 2 000 participants, Novavax has about 3 500 and Johnson & Johnson is part of a multicountry study, with SA participants totalling 12 000.”

Also read: SA likely to access Covid-19 vaccine only next year

Oxford’s AstraZeneca vaccine trial alone accounted for about 18 000 individual participants globally. The SAMRC has teamed up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fund a component of the South African vaccine study, making a contribution of R130 million to the budget.

Asked about the country’s eight million Covid-19 testing target, Madhi said: “The important thing about testing is that you don’t test for the sake of counting cases. Testing has to be under pinned by strategy, otherwise it is meaningless. If you are testing in a community, you should be able to immediately place people into quarantine.”

Reflecting on strict protocols adhered to in local vaccine trials, Dr Clare Cutland of Wits University’s Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, administering protocols at Oxford’s SA trial sites, said: “In our South African Oxford study, we have participants split into four groups, one of which comprises people living with HIV and another a cohort of HIV-unaffected participants.

“Participants undergo intensive safety follow-ups, during and after trial enrolment. They get 11 visits throughout the year – from the time of the vaccination – to focus on the safety of the vaccine. They are all welcome to return to the trial sites for any illness or visits for tests, should they experience coronavirus-related symptoms such as loss of smell or taste, runny nose, cough or pain – to be assessed by one of the doctors.”

Cutland said South African Oxford trials were overseen by the independent Data and Safety Monitoring Committee and strictly adhered to protocols set by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority and Wits University ethics committees.

– brians@citizen.co.za

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