South Africa, though the University of Cape Town, has joined global counterparts in the search for a coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccine through three international trials.

More Covid-19 vaccine candidates will soon be available for clinical trials in South Africa.

Deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at UCT’s Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM) Linda-Gail Bekker said that a Johnson & Johnson product and a Novavax product will be trialled in the country next month.

Bekker is the national principal investigator of the Johnson & Johnson trial alongside president and chief executive of the South African Medical Research Council and the protocol chairperson of this trial Professor Glenda Gray.

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 with Oxford University, and executed in association with 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. 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,” said Bekker.

The three vaccines currently being evaluated in South Africa have been included on the World Health Organization’s list of the 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.

Phase two involves hundreds of participants and phase three typically involves thousands.