Posted on: Wed 19-08-2020

South Africa will launch clinical trials of a US-developed coronavirus vaccine with 2,900 volunteers this week, the second such study in the African country worst hit by the disease, lead investigator Shabir Madhi said Tuesday. 

“It’s a two-dose schedule, and they get two either vaccines or placebos… spaced three weeks apart,” professor Madhi of the Johannesburg-based University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), told AFP. With 589,886 cases and 11,982 deaths, South Africa is fifth in global rankings for countries with the most infections. Since the country also accounts for 20 per cent of global HIV infections according to UNAIDS 2020 data, 240 medically stable, HIV-positive adults will also participate in the clinical trial.

In June, South Africa piloted its first trial of a vaccine developed by the Britain-based Oxford Jenner Institute. Some 2,000 people were injected with the vaccine known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 with  50 of the candidates having HIV.

Source: Vanguard

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