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Source: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/202...ainst-covid-19-africa-can-t-get-coveted-shots
A ‘landmark’ trial to test mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 in Africa can’t get the coveted shots
By Jon CohenJun. 7, 2021 , 3:35 PM
Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation.
The questions are urgent, and the funding is in place. But a highly anticipated, $130 million clinical trial, meant to test the efficacy of the novel messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for COVID-19 against a key variant of the pandemic coronavirus as well as in people living with HIV and pregnant women, is stalled. It is ready to launch in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, yet neither maker of the vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, wants to participate—or even provide their vaccines.
A group of prominent HIV advocates and activists in South Africa has written a letter complaining about the delay to U.S. government officials, including Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which agreed to pay for the study. They stress that COVID-19 strikes people living with HIV especially hard, and that dangerous variants of SARS-CoV-2 evolve in them because many have weakened immune systems. “We believe this will be a landmark study for this region and … the world,” they wrote. “We respectfully ask that you do all in your power to enable this study to take place.”
The efficacy trial could yield answers in as little as 12 weeks given the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the region. “This is the most important yet-to-be-done study” in the entire portfolio of adult COVID-19 vaccine trials funded by the U.S. government to date, says Lawrence Corey of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who helped organize the trial...
A ‘landmark’ trial to test mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 in Africa can’t get the coveted shots
By Jon CohenJun. 7, 2021 , 3:35 PM
Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation.
The questions are urgent, and the funding is in place. But a highly anticipated, $130 million clinical trial, meant to test the efficacy of the novel messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines for COVID-19 against a key variant of the pandemic coronavirus as well as in people living with HIV and pregnant women, is stalled. It is ready to launch in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa, yet neither maker of the vaccines, Pfizer and Moderna, wants to participate—or even provide their vaccines.
A group of prominent HIV advocates and activists in South Africa has written a letter complaining about the delay to U.S. government officials, including Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which agreed to pay for the study. They stress that COVID-19 strikes people living with HIV especially hard, and that dangerous variants of SARS-CoV-2 evolve in them because many have weakened immune systems. “We believe this will be a landmark study for this region and … the world,” they wrote. “We respectfully ask that you do all in your power to enable this study to take place.”
The efficacy trial could yield answers in as little as 12 weeks given the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the region. “This is the most important yet-to-be-done study” in the entire portfolio of adult COVID-19 vaccine trials funded by the U.S. government to date, says Lawrence Corey of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who helped organize the trial...
