Abu Dhabi: As thousands of Americans and Europeans flock to participate in COVID-19 vaccine trials and save humanity from this pandemic, a survey has revealed that Arabs appear to be a minority in this process.
Asked whether they would agree to volunteer to test a coronavirus vaccine, 57 per cent of respondents answered ‘no’ while 38 per cent said ‘yes’, and five per cent answered maybe, a snap survey of 925 readers conducted by Elaf, showed.
More than 10,000 residents in Abu Dhabi have volunteered to participate in a vaccine test to treat COVID-19.
The Department of Health in Abu Dhabi has begun the third phase of clinical trials on a vaccine, with a target of testing 15,000 residents of different nationalities in total.
Abdul Rahman bin Mohammed Al Owais, Minister of Health and Prevention has called on the community members to participate in the trials, stressing that the UAE is an ideal destination for such tests, as it hosts more than 200 nationalities.
A hotline has been set up to answer volunteers’ questions and provide them with support during the various stages of the trials, in addition to providing mobile clinics to ensure easy access to the volunteers.
Al Owais also added that all clinical trials are subject to country regulations, and follow strict international guidelines stipulated by the World Health Organisation to ensure the best safety standards for volunteers.
On August 1, Anthony Fauci, director of the American National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, revealed that 250,000 people (a quarter of a million) registered on the website of the National Institutes of Health to participate in vaccine testing against COVID-19.
On July 27, the pilot phase of the results of the largest study on the COVID-19 vaccine in the world began, with the first 30,000 volunteers helping test the vaccine produced by the US government, and it is one of several candidate vaccines in the final stage of the global vaccine race. The US government plans to conduct more studies on other vaccines every month until the end of next fall.
Russia has announced it will start from September and October industrial production of the two vaccines against COVID-19, developed by researchers from government centers, without revealing scientific data proving the effectiveness and safety of these vaccines.
Several projects to develop vaccines have shown encouraging results, including a Chinese project carried out in cooperation between the Military Research Institute and the “Cansino Biology” group for the production of medicines.
Three vaccines that have evolved in western countries have reached the final stage in their clinical trials in humans, a vaccine for the American company Moderna, another to be developed by the British University of Oxford in cooperation with the AstraZeneca laboratory, and a third for the German-American Pew-to-Pfizer Alliance.
The BBC says 10,000 volunteers participated in Oxford University experiments.
