Oxford, England – While most COVID-19 vaccine trial volunteers have no idea whether they are getting the real vaccine or a placebo; for volunteers participating in a new study with the potential for a paradigm shift in the UK, there is no placebo. It is not a matter of if they had a chance but which one – or rather, which two.
As CBS News correspondent Charlie D’Agata reports, it is the first COVID-19 vaccine trial of its kind, and scientists say the results could revolutionize the future of vaccine delivery, while offering the most powerful weapon. against emerging coronavirus variants.
D’Agata met Reeka Trikha just as she was about to receive her first injection as part of the trial. She had no idea what was about to be thrown in his arm.
“I will leave it in the competent hands of doctors,” she said, as she took the leap of faith.
The scientists behind the study conducted by the University of Oxford are deliberately mixing things up – testing not just a vaccine, but combining doses of two different drugs to see what happens.
More than 800 volunteers aged 50 and over participate in the trial. Some receive a “main” shot from Pfizer followed by a AstraZeneca reinforcement, a second group receives AstraZeneca, followed by Pfizer, and a third group of participants receives the same vaccine twice – the standard form – for comparison.
The injections are being administered at intervals of four and twelve weeks in different test groups to see what works best.
“With this knowledge, we can have complete confidence that a range of different vaccines can be launched and implemented in a population very quickly, very efficiently, without any concern for the inadvertent mixing of the combination,” Professor Paul Heath, Director of the Vaccine London’s St. George University Institute and the principal investigator at one of eight test sites across the UK, he told CBS News.
Evidence from the study may suggest that not only the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines, but potentially any combination of any COVID-19 vaccine can be safe and effective in preventing symptomatic infections. This flexibility can go a long way to alleviating the inevitable supply problems that are already emerging around the world.
But it could be even better news than that: Heath says that using alternate vaccines between an individual’s two doses could actually produce better overall protection against emerging variants of the virus.
“Potentially, with an initial boost of different vaccines, the broader response, the broader immune response that follows will be sufficient to deal, for example, with the South African variant,” he said, referring to a strain of virus that showed some degree of resistance to the current vaccines on offer.
As unpredictable as the virus is, two challenges ahead are certain: global scarcity will worsen and the virus will continue to mutate.
Test results in Britain may offer the best hope for solving these two problems.
For those who have already received a vaccine, it is unclear exactly how long the protection will last. If we all end up needing booster shots, Oxford research will clarify whether it would be better to change the vaccine next time.