Leading scientist Professor Shabir Madhi, who is leading a South African Covid-19 vaccine trial, believes that if the human trials succeed, Africa could have a vaccine in the first quarter of 2021.
This comes as positive cases in South Africa rose by 13 674 to a cumulative 238 339 (with 113 061 recoveries). Deaths rose by 129 – 37 each in Gauteng and the Western Cape, 28 in the Eastern Cape, 26 in KwaZulu-Natal and one in the Northern Cape – bringing the total to 3 720.
Gauteng, with 81 546 recorded cases, sustained its lead over the Western Cape, which now has 74 815 recorded cases.
The trials for ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, an experimental vaccine that is one of 19 being tested on humans globally in the race to stop a pandemic that has killed more than half a million people, are already under way.
News24 reported that the experimental vaccine was also being tested in Brazil by Oxford University scientists who were working with British drugmaker AstraZeneca on development and production.
Madhi, a professor of vaccinology at the University of Witwatersrand, said: ‘A vaccine could be made commercially as early as the beginning of next year. But it is completely dependent on the results of clinical trials.’
The trials hinged on the assessment over 12 months of 2 000 volunteers aged between 18 and 65.
Madhi anticipated early results by November or December.
‘The timing of an efficacy read-out depends on when we have approximately 42 Covid-19 cases at least one month after vaccination.’
Madhi said in a virtual World Health Organisation Africa online press briefing on Covid-19 and vaccine development in Africa that no vaccine ‘is going to made available freely to all because someone needs to eventually pay for it. It is hard to actually develop a funding mechanism, which allows for access and equitable access across the globe’.
The legal contest over the cigarette ban returns to the court next week. The High Court in Pretoria confirmed yesterday it would hear an application on 15 July by the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association for leave to appeal a ruling that kept cigarettes banned.
Globally, more than 12 million coronavirus infections have now been recorded, more than half of them in the United States and Latin America. AFP reported that at least 12 063 425 cases and 549 451 deaths had been recorded, with the number of infections doubling since 31 May. About half of those who caught the virus had recovered.