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South Africa will this week begin its first clinical trial for a vaccine against the novel coronavirus raising hope of taming a pandemic that has held the world hostage for months.
Participants from across Africa will be vaccinated in the South African-led trial, researchers said during a virtual news conference hosted at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg.
The South African Ox1Cov-19 Vaccine VIDA-Trial aims to find a vaccine that will prevent infection.
“This is a landmark moment for South Africa and Africa at this stage of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Shabir Madhi, Professor of Vaccinology at Wits University and director of the South Africa Medical Research Council (SAMRC) Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA), who is leading the trial.
“We began screening participants for the South African Oxford 1 COVID-19 vaccine trial last week and the first participants will be vaccinated this week,” said Madhi.
The school is collaborating with the University of Oxford and the Oxford Jenner Institute on the trial. The vaccine being used in the trial is the same one used in the UK and Brazil, according to a statement posted on Wits’ website.
South Africa is the worst-hit country on the continent.As at Wednesday 24 June, according to the figures published by Johns Hopkins University, 9,266,021 cases have been detected worldwide with 477,601 deaths whle 4,630,880 people have recovered.
South Africa leads sub-Saharan Africa with 106,108 cases and 2,102 deaths followed by Nigeria with 21,371 cases and 533 deaths; Ghana has 14,568 cases and 95 deaths.
Health officials in South Africa have warned of a surge in infections in the coming days. At least 53,444 people have recovered from COVID-19 in the country, which translates to a recovery rate of 52.6%. Authorities have conducted nearly 1.4 million tests since the virus was first detected in the country nearly three months ago, with 25,116 carried out in the past 24 hours.
