Friday, March 29, 2024 | Ramadan 18, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Real thing or placebo? My Covid vaccine odyssey continues

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Steve Stecklow


The subject line on the email I received last week said simply, “Test.”


It contained the results of a private blood test I had undergone the day before. I opened the attachment with excitement and some trepidation - I believed it would likely reveal whether I am already vaccinated against COVID-19, or if I received a placebo.


As a volunteer in a late-stage clinical trial for an experimental vaccine for COVID-19, I had already received two injections. I knew when I signed up there was a 50-50 chance I’d either get a vaccine made by an American company called Novavax — or a salt-water solution used as a control to see if the real thing works. A friend joked that might protect me against drowning, but nothing else.


I experienced no symptoms after the first shot, which I received in late October. But immediately following the second injection three weeks later, there was mild swelling where the needle had pierced my upper right arm. A small, pink circle quickly formed around it.


A nurse carefully measured the redness and took notes. Two doctors were called in to take a look. They eventually sent me home and asked me to contact the clinic if I experienced any pain or signs that it had become infected. That didn’t happen. Two weeks later, I returned to the clinical research facility at King’s College Hospital in south London for a scheduled blood test. I showed a doctor how the skin around the injection site was still black and blue.


“Looks like you got the real thing,” he said, to my surprise. He noted that several other volunteers had experienced similar symptoms, although he added it was still possible I had received the placebo. As it happened, that morning the United Kingdom became the first western country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine. It is made by Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech, which have reported that it was 95 per cent effective in clinical trials. It has since been authorised for use in several other countries, including the United States.


My feelings about the doctor’s comment were mixed. While the Novavax vaccine is considered very promising based on early results, its efficacy isn’t expected to be known until early next year. Who knows how effective it’ll be? Yet knowing I might already be protected against a potentially deadly virus seemed a relief. For starters, I might finally feel safe enough to visit the wonderful pub behind my house for the first time in nine months — wearing a mask, of course. To be honest, part of me had been secretly hoping that I had received the placebo. I had asked when my trial started what would happen if another vaccine was approved first. The doctor in charge had strongly suggested that I’d be told what I’d been injected with - a process known as “unblinding.” I could then get the approved vaccine — provided I had received the placebo. But if I had received the actual Novavax vaccine, he said, it could be risky because receiving two vaccines targeting the same disease could cause a reaction.


An email I received from the UK’s National Health Service basically confirmed that people who received the placebo would be able to get the approved vaccine once it was offered to them. Volunteers will not be “disadvantaged,” it stated.


— Reuters


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