KUALA LUMPUR, April 23 — Dr Amalina Che Bakri has announced that she is involved with recruiting volunteers and vaccinating them as part of the United Kingdom’s first Covid-19 vaccine trials.
The UK-based Malaysian general surgeon stated that the vaccine trials was led by Clinical Research Fellow in Vaccinology, Dr Katrina Pollock at UK’s National Institute for Health Research Imperial Clinical Research Facility which started yesterday.
The first of the UK vaccine trials has started at the NIHR Imperial Clinical Research Facility @imperialcollege led by Dr Katrina Pollock. I’m involved in recruiting healthy volunteers and vaccinating them in the next few weeks.
Advertisement— Dr. Amalina (@DrAmalinaBakri) April 22, 2020
“This is one of the two candidate vaccines that we will test at Imperial.”
“Great effort from Imperial team and very excited to see the outcome,” Dr Amalina said in her tweet, adding that they were currently looking for volunteers in the UK.
She will be recruiting and vaccinating volunteers in the next few weeks.
Dr Amalina is known for her initiative in bringing baby Ainul Mardhiah, who was diagnosed with germ cell tumour, to London.
A five-hour surgery to remove the tumour, weighing about 200g from the child’s mouth, was done in June last year.
The Imperial College National Health Service Trust is offering healthy volunteers aged from 18 to 55 years old, £190 to £625 (RM1,022 to RM3,363) reimbursement for time, travel and contribution to the trial.
According to the Imperial College London news portal, the joint collaboration between Imperial College and Oxford-led trials will be conducted at multiple centres across the UK including Southampton, Oxford, London and Bristol.
The Imperial College NHS Trust are looking for healthy volunteers to participate in a #COVID19 #vaccine trial, for which they will receive up to £190-£625 reimbursement for time, travel and contribution to the trial. (1/2)
— Imperial Medicine (@ImperialMed) April 21, 2020
Their work will enable researchers to assess whether healthy people can be protected by Covid-19 through their new vaccine called ChAdOx1 nCov-19.
The test will also help them with valuable information on safety aspects of the vaccine and its ability to generate positive immune responses from the virus.