Joining a vaccine trial will help scientists discover if potential vaccines work.
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If you are actively looking for a way to contribute constructively to the resolution of the coronavirus pandemic, you might consider volunteering for a coronavirus vaccine study. By participating in a vaccine trial, you would be a major player in the advancement of science so that the world can finally control the virus that has been overloading hospitals, taking lives and forcing blockades for more than six months.
With more than 10 million cases worldwide and more than half a million deaths, it is clear that we need an intervention. If you want to be one of the first to receive a Vaccine for COVID-19Now is your chance: find out who can join, how to join and where to join.
What is a vaccine study?
A vaccine study is a type of clinical trial that looks at the effectiveness of potential vaccines for infectious diseases. These studies are necessary to determine if a vaccine can prevent people from getting sick with disease, without causing serious side effects.
Each vaccination goes through a rigorous process that involves multiple stages. In some cases, such as the new coronavirus, national health agencies, generally the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration, will agree to speed up the process due to a emergency.
COVID-19 is undoubtedly an emergency, and the vaccine development process is being accelerated through Operation Warp Speed, which aims to make 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine available by January 2021.
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Current studies of the coronavirus vaccine
More than 130,000 people have signed up to volunteer for a COVID-19 vaccine study less than two weeks after the National Institutes of Health launched its COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN), a network that supports several clinical studies that They will evaluate “a variety of investigational vaccines.”
Four main studies are planned for the summer and fall of 2020, the first of which is expected to test the Modern vaccine, the first vaccine to enter human trials earlier this year. The other test vaccines come from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax.
All of the CoVPN studies are phase 3 trials, which means that it is already clear that vaccines do not cause immediate adverse effects, and the ultimate goal is to find out if the vaccine can prevent people from contracting the coronavirus or minimize severity.
Joining a vaccine trial carries inherent risks, which you will be informed about before participating.
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Who Should Join a Coronavirus Vaccine Study?
The CoVPN is seeking adults (18 years and older) of all races, ethnicities, sexes, and gender identities to join the studies.
You don’t have to be in perfect health, either: researchers want participants who are older and have underlying health conditions to participate, because those people are more likely to get sick from COVID-19, and the goal of these trials is to find out if vaccines they can prevent people from getting sick.
The researchers are also interested in recruiting people of color, because those communities have clearly been hit hardest by the new coronavirus. For a vaccine to be successful, it has to be successful for all races.
Pregnant women are also eligible to participate in coronavirus vaccine studies.
An important thing to remember is that these trials can be time consuming for participants. For any CoVPN study, you will need to visit a research site 10-12 times during your test. You will also need to keep track of how you feel in the hours and days after receiving your vaccine, and respond to follow-ups by the research coordinators. If you can’t commit over time, you may not want to enroll in a coronavirus vaccine trial.
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The risks of a vaccine study.
You should also, of course, be aware of the potential risks of enrolling in a vaccine trial. At best, at least one of the investigational coronavirus vaccines is successful, and none of them cause disease or adverse side effects. However, even Phase 3 vaccine trials carry the risk of developing disease and side effects.
If you choose to participate in a study and are selected, you will receive an informed consent form, detailing all the risks you incur in participating. Participation is entirely voluntary, and if something in informed consent is not comfortable for you, you can choose not to participate. You can also choose not to participate at any time during a clinical trial, but it helps researchers when participants stay for the entire duration of the trials.
How to join a coronavirus vaccine study
You can join any of the government-sponsored coronavirus vaccine trials by visiting the CoVPN website. There, you can begin the evaluation process to find out if you are eligible to participate in clinical trials.
The first step is a 10-minute survey that asks for your contact information, date of birth, weight, height, and other demographic information. The survey also asks some personal and lifestyle questions, many of which aim to determine how likely you are to be exposed to the virus.
It could be rejected based on your answers to these questions. For example, if you work from home, never have visitors, wear a mask when you go away, and live alone, it may not be a good choice for a vaccine test, because you don’t have many opportunities to expose yourself to the virus. Therefore, the researchers could not know if the vaccine protected him or if his lifestyle protected him.
If the researchers consider it appropriate for a vaccine trial, they will contact you to participate in a study. Because there are several planned vaccine trials with many research sites in the US, we may contact you in a matter of days, or it may take months.
Test sites for coronavirus vaccination trials
According to the NIH, there will be over 100 test sites in the US, and your information will be sent to the closest test site, based on the ZIP code you provided during the initial questionnaire. If you are selected to participate in a vaccine trial, a research coordinator will contact you and provide you with more information about the testing site and the testing process.
The information in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical or health advice. Always consult a doctor or other qualified healthcare provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health goals.
