It has come to ur attention that the Uganda government is set to run clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine on 27th January 2021. This event, is set to be officiated by the president of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and after the launch, the trials will begin right away.
Through the Senior Press Secretary to the President Don Wanyama, it is being pointed out that the event will be broadcasted live on the national television, UBC and it will conducted from Mulago Women’s Hospital. The Principle Private Secretary to president Museveni, Dr. Kenneth Omona Olusegun also confirms this.
The whole process has seen the team of scientists that led the tough fight to find the deadly virus vaccine, be congratulated and will be decorated as heroes should the vaccine be effective and with minimal side effects. This is another milestone reached by the government of Uganda about the fight for COVID-19 with a vaccine.
While talking to Ugandans in one of his presidential addresses, HE Yoweri Museveni asserted that the clinical vaccine trials would be run before this year 2021 goes so much far. And here we are. So this takes us to the point of question, on how far effective is the vaccine and how can it be trusted? Let us break it down for you.
WHAT IS A VACCINE CLINICAL TRIAL?
A vaccine trial is a clinical trial that aims at establishing the safety and efficacy of a vaccine prior to it being licensed. A vaccine candidate drug is first identified through preclinical evaluations that could involve high throughput screening and selecting the proper antigen to invoke an immune response.
It goes through five stages at least, that include, The preclinical stage necessary to determine approximate dose ranges and proper drug formulations.
The Phase I study that consists of introducing the vaccine candidate to assess its safety in healthy people. A vaccine Phase I trial involves normal healthy subjects, each tested with either the candidate vaccine or a “control” treatment, typically a placebo or an adjuvant-containing cocktail.
The Phase II, relies on the immunogenic and toxicity results from Phase I in a small cohort of healthy volunteers. Phase II will consist of more healthy volunteers in the vaccine target population (hundreds of people) to determine reactions in a more diverse set of humans and test different schedules.
Phase III, in here, the trials continue to monitor toxicity, immunogenicity, and SAEs on a much larger scale. The vaccine must be shown to be safe and effective in natural disease conditions before being submitted for approval and then general production. In Uganda, the National Drug Authority is responsible to approve the vaccine.
Phase IV, here trials are typically monitor stages that collect information continuously on vaccine usage, adverse effects, and long-term immunity after the vaccine is licensed and marketed.
So now you can see that it may be too early to call, the Uganda COVID-19 Vaccine still has a long way to go. We shall be patient.
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