More than 107,000 Americans have volunteered to participate in clinical trials for possible coronavirus vaccines as of last week, according to a USA Today report.
While the number has yet to reach the required 120,000, or 30,000 for each of the four drug manufacturers starting phase three trials, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the rapid records are a positive sign, according to the newspaper
“That is why we are optimistic that we will be able to register the trials expeditiously. I think we can do what we have to do,” Fauci said.
“I would say it is very encouraging at this stage to have 107,000 volunteers,” Barry Bloom, a professor of public health at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health, told the newspaper.
To speed up the testing process, the National Institutes of Health earlier this month launched the COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network, which combines four pre-existing test networks that have been used since the AIDS crisis.
“It would literally take years to build a network that I have built in the last 30 years. So why do it? We are going to use what we have,” Fauci said.
“Each vaccine needs to be tested on about 30,000 volunteers,” NIH Director Francis Collins said in June. “We don’t think we have enough analysis power to be able to document how the vaccine works unless it gets to about that number.”
The Food and Drug Administration is prioritizing demographics that have been particularly affected by the pandemic for testing, including minorities, the elderly, and people with pre-existing medical conditions, but the trials will adhere to the same stringent safety standards. than other vaccines. .
“The guidelines for these trials are really clear. They will be scientifically rigorous and there are no shortcuts,” Bloom told USA Today.
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