TV star Stephen Fry backs city university’s study into Covid vaccine

AUk-wide vaccine study run by Dundee University has gathered more than 10,000 volunteers since going live last month, with TV host and actor Stephen Fry backing the research.

The new study is monitoring all Covid-19 vaccines approved for use in the country.

Launched by the university’s Medicines Monitoring Unit (MEMO Research), the research is looking to help ensure vaccines work as they should, with 11,356 participants having registered to take part.

Anyone in Britain over the age of 18 can sign up before or after Covid-19 vaccination and provide information about their health and wellbeing from the comfort of their own home.

Popular comedian, actor, writer and broadcaster Stephen Fry is among those who have got behind VAC4COVID with the two-time rector of the university retweeting information about the study to his 12.6 million followers in order to encourage as many as possible to sign up.

Dr Amy Rogers of MEMO Research said: “We are delighted that more than 10,000 people have now signed up for VAC4COVID and are helping to support public confidence in the Covid-19 vaccines.

“Vaccines are crucial for combating the virus, but scientists and doctors still need to understand postvaccination health experiences.

“We still need many thousands more people to sign up to detect if there are any unexpected conditions linked to vaccination. People experience new medical conditions all the time, whether they have been vaccinated or not.

“The challenge for medicines regulators is to know how many are related to he vaccination itself and how many would have happened anyway. For this reason, we want to be able to track medical events both before and after vaccination, as well as in unvaccinated people.”

All vaccines must meet rigorous quality, safety, and efficacy standards before being approved but, as with any new medicines or treatments, ongoing research is needed to monitor vaccinations once they are used in the wider population.

Participants will be asked to provide information about their health before and after vaccination and to report diagnoses and symptoms that occur afterwards.

Those who sign up to the study will be contacted at regular intervals before and after vaccination to check on their general health.

The MEMO Research team will contact participants’ doctors and review their medical notes if they report concerning symptoms or diagnoses.

This will allow them to confirm possible sideeffects and maintain the quality of the study.

Even people who do not plan to get vaccinated are encouraged to take part to enable researchers to help gauge whether medical conditions are coincidental or a result of the vaccination.

The MEMO Research team at Dundee has many years’ experience of post-marketing surveillance of vaccines, including monitoring the safety of the new vaccines for swine flu in 2009.

Anyone interested in taking part in the study can sign up at http://www. vac4covid.com/.

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We want to be able to track medical events before and after vaccination

PLAYING HIS PART: Actor and former Dundee University rector Stephen Fry gets his Covid-19 vaccine at Westminster Abbey, London.