Saudi Health: We will conduct a clinical trial on a vaccine for Corona
The Saudi Ministry of Health confirmed that it is continuing its efforts to address the Corona Covid 19 pandemic, and to search for an effective vaccine, with unlimited support from the government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz.
According to the Saudi News Agency "SPA", the Ministry of Health indicated that a work plan is currently being developed to implement a clinical trial in the third phase of the vaccine against the Corona virus in cooperation with the Chinese company CanSinoa, which was able to develop a vaccine against the virus, as it carried out experiments for the first and second stages in China. The first phase of the study included a trial of a recombinant adenovirus type-5 vectored COVID-19 vaccine on 108 volunteers in China during the time period from 16 to 27 March 2020 that included three different doses (low, medium and high), and the second phase of the study included testing the vaccine on 603 volunteers in China during the period from 11 to 16 April 2020 and included two different doses (low and medium), as these two phases showed high efficacy of the vaccine with the appearance of antibodies to the virus in the volunteers ’plasma, and a good immune response, while the side effects were few, especially with doses. The vaccine is low, and the results of the two studies have been published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, "The Lancet."
The Saudi Health Ministry stated that the third phase will include multi-center clinical studies in different countries and in large numbers after the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine has been confirmed in the first and second stages, and the study that will be carried out in the Kingdom is aimed at a minimum of 5,000 healthy volunteers, those over the age of 18 years. By dividing the participants into two groups, the first will be given low doses of the vaccine, and the second group is the control group who will be given the vaccine with active substances in Placebo, noting that the research teams will follow up the participants after they are given the dose to ensure that no side effects appear, as The follow-up will be through direct visits with the doctors participating in the study and the necessary immunological analyzes, in addition to the use of electronic follow-up methods.
The Ministry of Health indicated that work is currently underway to prepare and make preparations to start in three main cities, namely Riyadh, Dammam and Makkah Al-Mukarramah, in four health clusters: the first health cluster in Riyadh, the second health cluster in Riyadh, the first health cluster in the eastern region and the first health cluster in Makkah, confirming That he will announce the launch of the study soon.
This step comes as a continuation of the studies and research it is conducting in this field, as the Ministry of Health, in cooperation with the World Health Organization, recently conducted an advanced multi-center clinical study in 7 hospitals in the Kingdom to combat the emerging corona pandemic.