Kenya has begun the clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of one of the Covid-19 vaccine known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.
The vaccine was developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with AstraZeneca.
In a statement on Friday, the Kenya Medical Research Institute confirmed that the trial team has already vaccinated its first volunteers.
This comes after receiving the necessary regulatory and ethical approvals from the Ministry of Health and Kilifi county.
The trail will be conducted at Kemri at its Kilifi-based Kemri-Wellcome Trust Research Program, a longstanding partnership between the institute, the University of Oxford, and the Wellcome Trust in the UK.
The trial aims to determine whether the vaccine is safe, effective, and gives good immune responses in adults in Kenya age 18 and above.
The trial will first involve 40 frontline health workers in Kilifi County.
If the vaccine is confirmed to be effective, a further 360 volunteered will be recruited with a likely expansion to Mombasa county.
“Vaccines which work in one population do not necessarily work in all populations; this has been witnessed in the case of vaccines against malaria, rotavirus, and Ebola,” Kemri said in a statement.
“To ensure that Kenyans can benefit from the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine if it proves to be successful, it is important to assess its performance among Kenyan volunteers.”
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Kemri said the trial volunteers will be monitored over a period of 12 months to assess their health, how their bodies develop immunity in response to the vaccine, and determine any vaccine side-effects.
The vaccine was made by incorporating genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 virus into the ChAdOX1 adenovirus vaccine platform that has a good record in its ability to safely elicit immune responses in humans.
