Global quest underway to speed COVID-19 vaccine trials – Reuters

  • Date: 20-Jul-2021
  • Source: Reuters
  • Sector:Healthcare
  • Country:Jordan
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Global quest underway to speed COVID-19 vaccine trials – Reuters

CHICAGO, July 20 (Reuters) - Scientists are working on a benchmark for COVID-19 vaccine efficacy that would allow drugmakers to conduct smaller, speedier human trials to get them to market and address a huge global vaccine shortage.

Researchers are trying to determine just what level of COVID-19 antibodies a vaccine must produce to provide protection against the illness. Regulators already use such benchmarks - known as correlates of protection - to evaluate flu vaccines without requiring large, lengthy clinical trials.

"You could use it to predict efficacy from a vaccine, which will be more important as we are less able to conduct placebo-controlled trials," said Stanley Plotkin, inventor of the Rubella vaccine and an expert on correlates of protection.