WHO and the Ministries of Health of Colombia, Mali, and the Philippines announce the launch of the co-sponsored Solidarity Trial Vaccines.
This is an international, randomized clinical trial platform designed to rapidly evaluate the efficacy and safety of promising new candidate vaccines selected by an independent vaccine prioritization advisory group composed of leading scientists and experts.
This announcement comes after the relevant regulatory authorities and ethics committees have granted approval for the study to progress.
The national principal investigators and their research teams in Colombia, Mali, and the Philippines have begun recruiting volunteers joining the trial.
The Solidarity Trial Vaccines is beginning with research teams in over 40 trial sites spread across the three countries. National research teams bring together experienced investigators well-versed in good clinical practice and the conduct of clinical trials.
To date, the independent vaccine prioritization advisory group has reviewed the evidence of around 20 candidate vaccines. Following the recommendation of the working group, 2 candidate vaccines are now included in the Solidarity Trial Vaccines. These are a protein subunit vaccine from Medigen, and a DNA vaccine encoding the spike protein from Inovio.
Two additional vaccines are expected to enter the Solidarity Trial Vaccines once additional evidence and documentation has been reviewed and accepted as satisfactory by the independent vaccine prioritization advisory group.
It is expected that other candidate vaccines currently under consideration by the vaccine prioritization advisory group may be added to the trial in late 2021 and during 2022.
The Solidarity Trial Vaccines aims to accelerate the evaluation of multiple promising candidate COVID-19 vaccines, contributing to the creation of a larger portfolio of vaccines needed to protect people from COVID-19 around the world. The trial has the additional potential to uncover second-generation vaccines with greater efficacy, conferring greater protection against variants of concern, offering longer duration of protection, and/or using needle-free routes of administration.