Over 700 volunteers join mixed vaccine use research project in Thailand

[Jonathan Fairfield]

 

More than 700 people have volunteered to join a research project, initiated by Thailand’s well known virologist Dr. Yong Poovorawan, of the Faculty of Medicine at Chulalongkorn University, to study the immune response and safety of mixed COVID-19 inoculation, using AstraZeneca and Sinovac.

 

In his Facebook post today (Saturday), Dr. Yong thanked all the volunteers for their enthusiasm, saying that, just six hours after the call for volunteers, more than 700 people had applied.

 

He said, however, that he has sought permission, from the Ethical Committee, to conduct the research on just 90 volunteers.

 

Full story:  https://www.thaipbsworld.com/over-700-volunteers-join-mixed-vaccine-use-research-project-in-thailand/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2021-06-20

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

[Bkk Brian]

They applied as it was the quickest way to get vaccinated. 

[mtls2005]

19 minutes ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

He said, however, that he has sought permission, from the Ethical Committee, to conduct the research on just 90 volunteers.

 

Thailand's vaccine plan in a nutshell: get a lot of people to jump through hoops REGISTERING, then administer a vaccine to 13%.

 

21 minutes ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

just six hours after the call for volunteers, more than 700 people had applied.

 

Meanwhile intervac chokes on three foreigners trying to register.

[Phuketshrew]

42 minutes ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

He said, however, that he has sought permission, from the Ethical Committee, to conduct the research on just 90 volunteers.

Thailand has an ethical committee?  ????????????

[mtls2005]

17 minutes ago, Phuketshrew said:

Thailand has an ethical committee? 

 

Of course.

 

They have committees to decide on forming a committee.

 

I think that no one feels empowered to make a decision so they form committees. Then ask the boss what HE wants, then they issue his desires.

 

 

 

 

 

[grumbleweed]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

just six hours after the call for volunteers, more than 700 people had applied.

Either brave or dumb on at least two counts:

1. Allowing themselves to be experimental pin cushions  for people who need to be told "Pointy end goes in the patient"

2. Uploading their personal details to a Thai website

 

[DLock]

35 minutes ago, grumbleweed said:

Either brave or dumb on at least two counts:

1. Allowing themselves to be experimental pin cushions  for people who need to be told "Pointy end goes in the patient"

2. Uploading their personal details to a Thai website

 

 

It was the free regular fries at McDonalds with any burger purchase that did it.

[rabas]

1 hour ago, Bkk Brian said:

They applied as it was the quickest way to get vaccinated. 

 

I thought about volunteering for Chulalongkorn's Phase 1 mRNA vaccine trials. Then I read they do not actually vaccinate you in Phase 1, rather they give higher and higher doses to subsequent volunteers, presumably until something happens.

 

"Rabus, thank you for volunteering, you are last".

[RafPinto]

All working at the top level government should volunteer.

[placnx]

4 hours ago, rabas said:

 

I thought about volunteering for Chulalongkorn's Phase 1 mRNA vaccine trials. Then I read they do not actually vaccinate you in Phase 1, rather they give higher and higher doses to subsequent volunteers, presumably until something happens.

 

"Rabus, thank you for volunteering, you are last".

The Chula mRNA is not the same situation. Here it makes sense to try vaccinating a few to see whether there is same or better immunity than Sinovac alone. Then they should go into a real trial with placebos or even better a group vaccinated with 2 jabs of Sinovac, since we are now in a setting with the Indian variant circulating. 

[RichardColeman]

5 hours ago, grumbleweed said:

Either brave or dumb on at least two counts:

More daft if they took the two different chinese ones !

[rabas]

19 hours ago, placnx said:

The Chula mRNA is not the same situation. Here it makes sense to try vaccinating a few to see whether there is same or better immunity than Sinovac alone. Then they should go into a real trial with placebos or even better a group vaccinated with 2 jabs of Sinovac, since we are now in a setting with the Indian variant circulating. 

Agree with your plan, they really should compare the vaccines they are using.

 

I was referring to the Phase I where they try different doses to see the response. 

 

"... groups are divided into sub-groups each with a different dosage of 10, 25 and 50 micrograms.  This is to determine the dosage at which the ChulaCov19 shows the greatest efficacy, since at present Moderna’s dosage is 100 micrograms while Pfizer is 30 micrograms."  https://www.chula.ac.th/en/news/47800/

[placnx]

4 hours ago, rabas said:

Agree with your plan, they really should compare the vaccines they are using.

 

I was referring to the Phase I where they try different doses to see the response. 

 

"... groups are divided into sub-groups each with a different dosage of 10, 25 and 50 micrograms.  This is to determine the dosage at which the ChulaCov19 shows the greatest efficacy, since at present Moderna’s dosage is 100 micrograms while Pfizer is 30 micrograms."  https://www.chula.ac.th/en/news/47800/

I was under the impression that the standard approach is:

Phase 1: preliminary testing on a few subjects to check for safety and immune response

Phase 2: testing various dosages with a larger group

Phase 3: testing tens of thousands against a placebo group to determine efficacy

 

Last year the mRNA vaccines were trialed with phases 2 & 3 at the same time.

 

If the Indian and "Vietnam" variants (or some newbie from Africa) turn out to break through the Chinese vaccines, in the present case they could do a booster trial alongside a regular Phase 3 efficacy trial. In this case they need to check the antibodies in each subject before injecting the Chula booster. Elapsed time from previous vaccination should be noted. Several weeks after the booster, antibodies would be checked again.

 

BTW Curevac failed.