What is it like to participate in a vaccine trial?

MIAMI (AFP) – A key facet of the mad global fight by Pfizer, Moderna and other pharmaceutical groups to develop a viable coronavirus vaccine is the recruitment of tens of thousands of volunteers willing to participate in clinical trials.

AFP Miami correspondent Leila Macor participated in such a trial organized by the US biotech firm Moderna, which announced Monday that its experimental vaccine was nearly 95 percent effective.

Why did Macor, who suffers from asthma, decide to be one of Moderna’s 30,000 test subjects? Here, he recounts his experience, which began a few weeks after his own father died of Covid-19 in Chile.

Difficult decision
Three weeks before Pfizer and Moderna launched their clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine in late July, my father passed away, alone, as many have in this crisis.

As our family lived through the trauma and said goodbye to the best of our ability, I was faced with another stark and dangerous reality: Miami was becoming a major virus hotspot in the United States, and my job was to cover the story.

But my life has changed irrevocably. I lost my dad and I have asthma, which could lead to serious complications if I got infected.

The thought of taking steps to help manage this deadly medical emergency offered me some peace of mind.

Let me be clear, this was a totally personal decision that had nothing to do with work.

I discussed this with friends and family, who helped me decide that the potential side effects of the trial would be no worse than getting Covid-19.

So I jumped in.

Two days after writing a story about the start of phase 3 trials in Florida, I once again knocked on a lab door, this time as a potential subject.

Research Centers of America, located in Miami’s Hollywood suburb, was working on tests for Pfizer and Moderna, alternating every other day.

Dozens of other labs were recruiting volunteers across the United States. Anyone was eligible, as long as they had high-risk jobs: doctors, taxi drivers, supermarket workers… and reporters.

I made an appointment for a Tuesday in the middle of August. That happened to be a Moderna day.

Vaccine or placebo?
The laboratory staff put a name tag on me and took me to an office, where they explained what would happen. They also gave me a 22 page document with all the details.

The trial consists of two doses. Volunteers are paid $ 2,400 over the course of the two-year study. They warned of possible side effects, from pain at the injection site to fever and chills.

The 30,000 subjects are divided into two groups: those who receive the vaccine and those who receive a placebo.

“’Even we don’t know which is which,’ ‘the nurse told me when I asked about my group. Only Moderna knows.

I asked if I could have an antibody test, but the nurse said the results were not foolproof.

“‘Not knowing is going to kill me,’ I said.

While taking my blood pressure, the nurse looked at me and said, in a rather serious tone: “Placebos are as important as the vaccine. The trial needs a control group. You are helping humanity in any way. “

Then two people with the vaccine entered a cooler. Or maybe it was the placebo.

They laughed when I asked them to document the moment in an image. For them, it was just another Tuesday.

The injection didn’t hurt. They took me to a waiting room, where I spent half an hour observing as a precaution. Three or four other volunteers checked their phones while they waited.

One of the nurses was wearing a Superman cape.

“Why the cape?” I asked.

“Because we are all heroes here, girl,” he said.

I have a bunch of booties (stickers, a t-shirt, a mask) with “Covid warriors” or “Covid superheroes” written on it.

The lab asked me to download an app to track my temperature and any eventual symptoms.
When I got home, my arm hurt a little. I wondered: did I really get the vaccine? Three days of Internet searches for “vaccine injection site”, “muscle pain” and other terms got me nowhere.

The second dose arrived in mid-September. It hurt a lot more and for a while. A hard red knot emerged at the injection site.

But I still have no idea if it was the placebo or the vaccine. I have to wait for Moderna to tell me, one day.

Eventually I realized that participating in the trial was a way of processing my grief – losing my father and seeing the world upside down. It was a small gesture, but it was the only way I could make myself believe that we are fighting.