Coronavirus vaccine trial participant reveals potential side effects of shot
A British man takeing part in the COVID-19 vaccine trial has revealed that the possible side effects of the shot include fever.
Simeon Courtie, a writer and former children's TV presenter, is taking part in a trial run by the Jenner Institute at Oxford University and the Oxford Vaccine Group. From Friday, one of the test phases will test whether it is safe to use the vaccine in healthy volunteers, and will enable researchers to see if it produces an immune response. He told Good Morning UK that 500 people were taking part in the trial.
Courtie said he was told the side effects would be "due to the flu." As each person reacts differently, the intensity will vary. "I think there might be a fever for a day or two and some pain and discomfort. It shouldn't be too much of a disturbance in my life."
Courtie has attended the Jenner Institute in Oxford for the screening, and his first dose will be next Wednesday.
Ohid Yaqub, a senior lecturer in the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, who is not working on the study, said in a statement: "the vaccine they are testing is a small part of the COVID virus, packaged inside a delivery vector. None of these can cause disease but can be successful in triggering an immune response."
Yaqub said: "The trial will mostly be looking for any problems or severe adverse reactions. There will very likely be none, so the trial is also designed to enable us to learn a little bit about efficacy at the same time."
According to Johns Hopkins University, there is currently no vaccine or specific treatment for COVID-19, which has killed more than 203,154 people. More than 2.9 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and at least 836,612 have recovered. The U.S. is the country with the most confirmed cases.
Yaqub said: "In terms of broader policy context, this is extremely early days. We should be careful not to tempt people working on vaccines into estimating or making optimistic predictions about when a vaccine will be ready. There is a long history of over-optimistic vaccine predictions.
"Even if a vaccine unexpectedly becomes available, it is too early even to speculate whether it will have high efficacy or low efficacy. A low efficacy vaccine will have different policy implications in terms of how it should be rolled out.
"I therefore think public policy attention should continue to focus on testing and on healthcare system capacity, and should focus on lockdown and managing the social costs of (partial) lockdown for as long as possible."
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