There are nearly 150 Covid-19 vaccines under development around the world. One that shows particular promise is being developed by the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. It is currently under assessment in human trials around the world, including in South Africa. AstraZeneca, which is producing the vaccine for the university, is so confident it will work that it has started beefing up production to have available 100 million doses in October. The University of the Witwatersrand has started human trials. The Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, Prof Martin Veller spoke to BizNews about the importance of trials in South Africa and his expectation of the timeline for Covid-19 vaccine development. – Linda van Tilburg
By Fadia Salie
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As the rush is on to find a vaccine against the deadly coronavirus, experts are worried that South Africa may have about 10 times as many Covid-19 infections than official records suggest.
And that is not surprising, says Professor Martin Veller, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, where human trials of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine have begun.
Veller said the sudden, very significant upswing in terms of infections in Gauteng means that there’s a base that is probably significantly underestimated. “It’s not because people are wanting to under-report it, it’s just that we’re not testing enough, and I think we may well be dramatically underestimating the amount of asymptomatic infections,” he told BizNews.
Flagging the Western Cape, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape as problem areas, he said it’s highly unlikely that we’re going to have a vaccine before the latter part of next year, “although there are people who are obviously pushing”.
At last count the country had about 140,000 infections, with 43.8% of the cases concentrated in the Western Cape, and Gauteng and Eastern Cape recording 26.7% and 18.2% of cases respectively.
By the end of June, the death toll was around 2,500, with more than half in the Western Cape.
Veller warned that although all models indicate that South Africa “is a longish way away from a peak, we certainly are going to be in for a run of four to six weeks”.
On the Oxford vaccine, Veller said a randomised controlled trial is starting in adults, non-HIV infected adults and non-pregnant women to try and get an understanding of what happens in a “relatively normal” population.
“The patient selection, I’m told, is to go to places where there are hot spots, so that you don’t have the value of an increasing risk of infection, which is what we require. Obviously, we don’t want people to become infected, but in this situation, what we are studying is the effectiveness of preventing infection.”
