09/12/2020 - 10:47
Clarín.com
Society
The English University of Oxford reported this Saturday that it will resume clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine, after being recently interrupted after a volunteer in the United Kingdom suffered an adverse reaction.
In a statement, Oxford indicated that testing of the vaccine, called
ChAdOx1 nCoV-19
, will resume in the UK after pausing on the 6th as a precautionary measure.
This possible vaccine, considered one of the most advanced developed worldwide, is in the final stages of clinical trials before receiving authorization from regulatory bodies to proceed to immunize the population.
This week, the American newspaper The New York Times reported that one of the volunteers had suffered adverse myelitis, a disease in the spinal cord that can be caused by viral infections.
The AstraZeneca laboratory, at the forefront with the university in the development of the vaccine, issued a statement in which it did not confirm that myelitis was the adverse effect.
According to local spokesmen told Clarín, these are journalistic versions.
They also clarified that
the study was not discontinued
but that the laboratory "made a voluntary pause", as "is normal" in trials of this type to make an evaluation of the case.
They also reported that this measure
was not requested by any health authority
but that AstraZeneca made the decision to "respect
all safety standards
."
The official statement, issued by the company globally, was in the same vein.
They noted that "as part of the ongoing randomized controlled clinical trials of the AstraZeneca Oxford coronavirus vaccine, AZD1222, a standard review process has been activated that has led to the voluntary pause of vaccination in all trials to allow an independent committee to review the safety data for a single unexplained illness event that occurred in the UK phase III trial. "
He also remarks that "this is a routine action that should happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials."
As the company explained, "In large clinical trials, diseases will happen by chance and must be reviewed independently.
The potential vaccine, which showed promising results in early trials, is undergoing clinical trials in the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil and South Africa.
Last month, the governments of Argentina and Mexico, as well as the Mexican Slim Foundation, reached an agreement with AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford to manufacture the vaccine for their countries and then distribute it to the rest of Latin America, except Brazil.
The president of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, reported in August that the goal was to produce between 150 and 250 million doses that would be available at affordable prices, with an individual cost of between 3 and 4 dollars.
With information from EFE.