South Africa will start the first COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial in the country and African continent this week. The vaccine for the trial is the same as that being used in the UK and Brazil.
JOHANNESBURG, June 24 (Xinhua) — South Africa will start the first COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial in the country and African continent this week, said University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) at a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
The South African Ox1Cov-19 Vaccine VIDA-Trial aims to find a vaccine that will prevent infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The technical name of the vaccine is ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, as it is made from a virus called ChAdOx1, which is a weakened and non-replicating version of a common cold virus (adenovirus). The vaccine has been engineered to express the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.
The vaccine was developed at the Oxford Jenner Institute and is currently on trial in the UK, where over 4,000 participants are already enrolled into the clinical trial and enrolment of an additional 10,000 participants is planned.
The vaccine being used in the South African trial is the same as that being used in the UK and Brazil.
Wits University is collaborating with the University of Oxford and the Oxford Jenner Institute on the South African trial.
“We began screening participants for the South African Oxford 1 COVID-19 vaccine trial last week and the first participants will be vaccinated this week,” said Shabir Madhi, director of the South Africa Medical Research Council (SAMRC) Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA).
“This is a landmark moment for South Africa and Africa at this stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we enter winter in South Africa and pressure increases on public hospitals, now more than ever we need a vaccine to prevent infection by COVID-19,” said Madhi.
“Vaccines are amongst the most powerful tools to mitigate life-threatening diseases. Without a vaccine against COVID-19, there will likely be ongoing contagion, causing severe illness and death,” said Zeblon Vilakazi, Witwatersrand University vice principal.
South African Health Products Regulatory Authority chairperson Helen Rees welcomed the trials, saying that “it is essential that vaccine studies are performed in southern hemisphere countries, including in the African region, concurrently with studies in northern hemisphere countries. This allows evaluation of the efficacy and safety of candidate vaccines to be assessed in a global context.”
There are currently over 100 candidate COVID-19 vaccines in development around the world and many of South Africa’s best vaccine research institutions will soon be involved in a range of vaccine studies evaluating other types of potential COVID-19 vaccines. ■
