Kenya began its clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The vaccine has been developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with AstraZeneca.
The Kenya Medical Research Institute(KEMRI) in a statement released on Friday confirmed that the trial team has vaccinated its first volunteers.
The study plans to evaluate whether the vaccine is safe, effective, and elicits good immune responses in adults in Kenya aged 18 years and above. The trial in Kenya will initially involve 40 frontline workers in Kilifi County.
Once the vaccine safety is confirmed, a further 360 volunteers will be recruited with possible expansion of the trial to Mombasa county.
“Vaccines which work in one population do not necessarily work in all populations; this has been witnessed in the case of vaccines against malaria, rotavirus, and Ebola,” the statement says.
“To ensure that Kenyans can benefit from the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine if it proves to be successful, it is important to assess its performance among Kenyan volunteers.”
The vaccine was made by incorporating genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus into the ChAdOx1 adenovirus vaccine platform that has a well-established track record in terms of its ability to safely elicit immune responses in humans when used for other diseases.
More than 10,000 volunteers have so far been immunized across the global trial sites and the vaccine found to be well tolerated.
“For this reason, the KEMRI expressed an interest to evaluate the vaccine in Kenya, leveraging the institute’s well-established capacity in the conduct of clinical trials in Africa and long-standing collaboration with the University of Oxford.”
It adds: “For instance, the institute has been involved in pre-clinical vaccine development, first-in-human trials, as well as early and late-stage evaluation of vaccine candidates against malaria, Ebola, shigella, yellow fever, and pneumonia.”
(With input from agencies)
