UCT joins search for COVID-19 vaccine

26 August 2020 | Story Niémah Davids. Photo Getty Images. Read time 7 min.
UCT is participating in three international COVID-19 vaccine trials.
UCT is participating in three international COVID-19 vaccine trials.

South Africa has joined global counterparts in search for a COVID-19 vaccine and the University of Cape Town (UCT) is lending a hand, participating in three international trials in the country, alongside several other universities.

According to Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, the deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at UCT’s Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM), more COVID-19 vaccine candidates will soon be available for clinical trials in the country.

Professor Bekker said that a Johnson & Johnson product, Ad26.COV2-S, and a Novavax product, NVX-CoV2373, will both be trialled in the country as of next month. Bekker is the national principal investigator of the Johnson & Johnson trial alongside Professor Glenda Gray, the president and chief executive of the South African Medical Research Council and the protocol chairperson of this trial.

 

“It is very important for South Africa to participate [in vaccine trials] because we can contribute to the global cause.”

The latest developments come in the wake of South Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine trial, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, led by the University of the Witwatersrand’s Professor Shabir Madhi in partnership with Oxford University, and executed in association with the UCT Lung Institute (one of several trial sites in the country) under the guidance of UCT’s Professor Keertan Dheda, the head of the Centre for Lung Infection and Immunity at the UCT Lung Institute.

“It is very important for South Africa to participate [in vaccine trials] because we can contribute to the global cause, and it helps scientists understand how South Africans will respond to these [vaccine] candidates,” Bekker said.

“It also gives us an opportunity to investigate if there are any safety concerns and, importantly, to claim the vaccines once [they have] found to be effective and rolled out.”

‘Timing is everything’

Bekker said that scientists are only able to test the efficacy and safety of vaccine candidates in an area where the virus is currently circulating or being transmitted. Therefore, eligible candidates, aged 18 years and older, who live and work in COVID-19 hotspot areas have been identified as primary participants.

“If we are to participate, we need to do it while there are ongoing COVID[-19] infections in the general community and select participants who are most at risk of exposure to COVID-19. Timing is everything in this process.”

The process is straightforward. Participants are injected into one or both arms with either a placebo or the potential SARS-CoV-2 vaccine at a trial site approved to conduct the study. Trials are double-blinded, which means that both the scientist and participant are unaware of who received the placebo or the potential vaccine.

 

“We hope the vaccine will be safe and well tolerated [by participants].”

Participants are then asked to return to trial sites at various intervals for blood tests that enable immunogenicity studies. This helps scientists to determine how the body’s immune system is reacting to the vaccine. Using these blood samples, scientists can also monitor candidates for signs of COVID-19, other illnesses and potential harmful side effects.

Should a participant develop COVID-19 during the process, Bekker said that scientists will monitor the candidate closely to help them determine the progression and severity of the virus. In conclusion, researchers will conduct a comparison study to determine the number of participants who received the vaccine candidate and contracted the virus and compare this with those who received the placebo.

“This tells us then what the vaccine efficacy is,” she said.

“We hope the vaccine will be safe and well tolerated [by participants] and that it will eventually reduce the number of COVID[-19] cases on a much bigger scale.”

‘Viable’ trials

Scientists are hopeful that more than one of the vaccine candidates will yield some positive results since multiple vaccine platforms are currently under investigation.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine candidate, Bekker explained, is based on a vector (harmless carrier) approach whereby the antigen (immunogenic component) is inserted into an adenovirus 26 vector.

The vaccine candidate uses the vector to deliver the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into host cells where it stimulates the body to raise immune responses against COVID-19. Adenovirus 26, she said, is a well-known and trusted candidate that causes mild cold-like symptoms in humans and has been an effective vector for vaccine candidates for Ebola and the Zika virus.

 

“And here in South Africa, as we speak, it’s also being evaluated as a potential [vaccine] candidate for HIV.”

“And here in South Africa, as we speak, it’s also being evaluated as a potential [vaccine] candidate for HIV. So, we are old friends with this approach.”

Pre-clinical trials on the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccine candidates have shown positive immune responses during earlier phases, which included testing its effectiveness on animals.

The three vaccines currently being evaluated in South Africa have been included on the World Health Organization’s list of 26 most viable candidate vaccines to enter human clinical trials. Bekker said that the Johnson & Johnson trial is currently in phase three and officially kick-starts in the country next month. The Novavax and Oxford trials are both in phase two, with phase three trials planned to start within weeks.

“Typically, phase two involves hundreds of participants and phase three involves thousands,” she said.

Participation is paramount

According to Professor Dheda, participating in vaccine trials is critical.

He said that it is especially important for South Africa to get involved because of the country’s diverse genetic background, which will count in scientists’ favour as they work to establish how well different ethnic groups globally respond to the vaccine, and if they do so in the same manner.

“The immune systems of participants in African countries have greater exposure to environmental bacteria and parasites,” Dheda said.

The UCT Lung Institute is recruiting participants in the Western Cape to facilitate both screening and vaccinating for the Novavax and ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine product trials. At the end of the process, Dheda said that the data will be collated to determine the efficacy of both vaccines.

“We need to take an active interest in our future to determine if the vaccine will work in our setting. It may also facilitate vaccine access for South Africans. Historically, it has taken several years for vaccines to reach Africa,” he said.

“More than that, our participation will also help to mitigate the COVID-19 stigma.”


Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Please view the republishing articles page for more information.


UCT’s response to COVID-19

COVID-19 is a global pandemic that caused President Cyril Ramaphosa to declare a national disaster in South Africa on 15 March 2020 and to implement a national lockdown from 26 March 2020. UCT is taking the threat of infection in our university community extremely seriously, and this page will be updated with the latest COVID-19 information. Please note that the information on this page is subject to change depending on current lockdown regulations.

Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla, has in June 2022 repealed some of South Africa’s remaining COVID-19 regulations: namely, sections 16A, 16B and 16C of the Regulations Relating to the Surveillance and the Control of Notifiable Medical Conditions under the National Health Act. We are now no longer required to wear masks or limit gatherings. Venue restrictions and checks for travellers coming into South Africa have now also been removed.

In July 2022, the University of Cape Town (UCT) revised its approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic on UCT campuses in 2022.
Read the latest document available on the UCT policies web page.

 

Campus communications

 
2022

Adjusting to our new environment 16:50, 23 June 2022
VC Open Lecture and other updates 17:04, 13 April 2022
Feedback from UCT Council meeting of 12 March 2022 09:45, 18 March 2022
UCT Council
March 2022 graduation celebration 16:45, 8 March 2022
Report on the meeting of UCT Council of 21 February 2022 19:30, 21 February 2022
UCT Council
COVID-19 management 2022 11:55, 14 February 2022
Return to campus arrangements 2022 11:15, 4 February 2022

UCT Community of Hope Vaccination Centre

On Wednesday, 20 July, staff from the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Faculty of Health Sciences came together with representatives from the Western Cape Government at the UCT Community of Hope Vaccination Centre at Forest Hill Residence to acknowledge the centre’s significance in the fight against COVID-19 and to thank its staff for their contributions. The centre opened on 1 September 2021 with the aim of providing quality vaccination services to UCT staff, students and the nearby communities, as well as to create an opportunity for medical students from the Faculty of Health Sciences to gain practical public health skills. The vaccination centre ceased operations on Friday, 29 July 2022.

With the closure of the UCT Community of Hope Vaccination Centre, if you still require access to a COVID-19 vaccination site please visit the CovidComms SA website to find an alternative.

 

“After almost a year of operation, the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Community of Hope Vaccination Centre, located at the Forest Hill residence complex in Mowbray, will close on Friday, 29 July 2022. I am extremely grateful and proud of all staff, students and everyone involved in this important project.”
– Vice-Chancellor Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng

With the closure of the UCT Community of Hope Vaccination Centre, if you still require access to a COVID-19 vaccination site please visit the CovidComms SA website to find an alternative.


Thank You UCT Community

Frequently asked questions

 

Global Citizen Asks: Are COVID-19 Vaccines Safe & Effective?

UCT’s Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM) collaborated with Global Citizen, speaking to trusted experts to dispel vaccine misinformation.



If you have further questions about the COVID-19 vaccine check out the FAQ produced by the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation (DTHF). The DTHF has developed a dedicated chat function where you can ask your vaccine-related questions on the bottom right hand corner of the website.

IDM YouTube channel | IDM website
 

 

“As a contact university, we look forward to readjusting our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in 2023 as the COVID-19 regulations have been repealed.”
– Prof Harsha Kathard, Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Teaching and Learning

We are continuing to monitor the situation and we will be updating the UCT community regularly – as and when there are further updates. If you are concerned or need more information, students can contact the Student Wellness Service on 021 650 5620 or 021 650 1271 (after hours), while staff can contact 021 650 5685.

 

TOP