South Africa will roll out the continent's first coronavirus vaccine trial this week, the university leading the pilot said today, as the country grapples with the highest number of cases in Africa.
The vaccine, developed by the Oxford Jenner Institute, is already being evaluated in Britain, where 4,000 participants have signed up for the trial.
South Africa has set out to vaccinate 2,000 people with the vaccine known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. Fifty of the candidates have HIV. "We began screening participants for the South African Oxford 1 Covid-19 vaccine trial last week, and the first participants will be vaccinated this week," University of Witwatersrand (Wits) vaccinology professor Shabir Madhi told a virtual press conference.