Vaccine trials in SA set for next month

UCT is participating in three international trials in the country in the search for a Covid-19 vaccine, alongside several other universities.

Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, the deputy director for the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at UCT’s Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM), said more Covid-19 vaccine candidates would soon be available for clinical trials in the country.

Bekker said that a Johnson & Johnson product, Ad26.COV2-S, and a Novavax product, NVX-CoV2373, would both be trialled in the country as of next month.

Bekker is the national principal investigator of the Johnson & Johnson trial alongside Professor Glenda Gray, the president and chief executive of the South African Medical Research Council and the protocol chairperson of the trial.

The latest developments come in the wake of South Africa’s first Covid19 vaccine trial, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, led by the University of the Witwatersrand’s Professor Shabir Madhi in partnership with Oxford University, and executed in association with the UCT Lung Institute (one of several trial sites in the country) under the guidance of Professor Keertan Dheda, the head of the Centre for Lung Infection and Immunity at the UCT Lung Institute.

“It is very important for South Africa to participate (in vaccine trials) because we can contribute to the global cause, and it helps scientists understand how South Africans will respond to these (vaccine) candidates,” Bekker said.

She said it also gave them an opportunity to investigate if there were any safety concerns and, importantly, to claim the vaccines once they had found to be effective and rolled out.

Dheda said participating in vaccine trials was critical.

“We need to take an active interest in our future to determine if the vaccine will work in our setting.”

He said it may also facilitate vaccine access for South Africans. Historically, it had taken several years for vaccines to reach Africa.

“The UCT Lung Institute is recruiting participants in the Western Cape to facilitate both screening and vaccinating for the Novavax and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine product trials.”

Dheda said more than that, their participation would also help mitigate the stigma of Covid-19.