Funding could advance vaccine trial reach

WITH more funding, a clinical trial using Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine to determine if it can reduce infection or severity of Covid-19 symptoms, can be tested on more participants.

The trial among health-care workers is under way with 800 volunteers at three sites in the Western Cape. But with more funding, this could increase to 2000 participants.

The year-long study, the first to focus solely on front-line health workers, began in May and involves Stellenbosch University, UCT and TASK, an enterprise that develops and tests new drugs and vaccines.

Dr Caryn Upton at TASK said BCG had protective non-specific effects against respiratory tract infections.

“BCG is typically given to children to protect against tuberculosis. As a side effect, it seems to also protect against a wide range of other respiratory illnesses. In the clinical trial we want to see if the vaccine can help the body to respond better, faster and more aggressively to infections and viruses that affect the chest and respiratory system such as Covid-19.

Upton said the study was also aimed at looking at whether the vaccine could prevent active TB, regarded as one of the biggest causes of deaths in the country, and what effect it would have on latent TB.

“It is estimated that between 60 percent and 70 percent of health-care workers in South Africa have latent TB... And BCG’s vaccine protection against TB lasts for between five and 15 years,” she said.

Upton added that half of those recruited would get the BCG vaccine while the other half would be injected with placebo.

“We will only approach the health department when we have achieved what we had set out to do and a clear benefit of BCG is seen,” he added.

In late June, South Africa launched human trials of a vaccine, largely hoped to be a front-runner in the race to find an effective one against Covid-19 and developed by Oxford University’s Jenner Institute.

This week, clinical trials of a USdeveloped coronavirus vaccine were expected to be launched in the country.