VIDO-InterVac is expanding the human clinical trials of its new COVID-19 vaccine beyond Canada to other countries.
The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, VIDO-InterVac, received approval from Health Canada just before Christmas to begin human clinical trials of its new COVID-19 vaccine.
Dr. Andrew Van Kessel, the Associate Director Research with VIDO-InterVac, explains human clinical testing requires three phases, phase one which involves a relatively small number of individuals to test the safety of the vaccines followed by phase two, which involves a larger number of people to establish whether it produces an immune response and then phase three which gets into a larger number of participants to establish whether it’s effective in protecting against infection.
We are currently in that first phase, phase one, testing that the vaccine is safe. That’s occurring in Halifax and is proceeding very well. We are working to expand the sites for our phase one study into other parts of Canada and we’re also moving internationally now to complete our phase one study and actually move into a phase two study.
Again, everything very looks very good in terms of the safety of the vaccine but, as authorised vaccines become available in Canada, it becomes more and more difficult to find individuals who are not vaccinated and who would want to participate in the study.
So today, in order to complete those phase one and phase two studies and to find a population of unvaccinated people we are actually looking at going to international sites to complete phase one and phase two and demonstrate that the vaccine is efficacious and develops and induces a strong immune response.
~ Dr. Andrew Van Kessel, VIDO-InterVac
Dr. Van Kessel says the vaccine has demonstrated itself to safe and effective against both the original virus and the variants in animal models. He says it’s also proving safe in humans but, because this is a blind study, it’s too early to comment on its effectiveness.
