With less than 48 hours gone since the launch of the Ebola trial vaccine at the Redemption Hospital in New Kru Town, the exercise has been described as a remarkable success by the lead Liberian doctor working with the team that is conducting the study.
According to Doctor Stephen Kennedy, who consented to the volunteer-trial process and was vaccinated Tuesday morning, investigators are now planning to speed up the trial exercise by increasing the number of volunteers vaccinated per day based on the high level of interest demonstrated so far by the general public.
The study vaccines trial exercise was launched Sunday with the first set of volunteers inoculated on Monday at Redemption. Having planned to handle 12 volunteers daily, the study team has resolved to increase the number due to the momentum the exercise has gained less than two days since it was launched.
“The trial has been exceptionally successful,” Dr. Stephen Kennedy, the Liberian co-investigator on the study, told reporters Tuesday. “I am very happy that we are making significant progress. Liberians are getting enthusiastic. On Monday we had planned to enroll only 12 participants and we receive more than 12 people so we had to send some people home. At the end of the day (Monday) we went back to the drawing board to double that to 24 today (Tuesday). When I came in this morning at 8: 30 we
already had more than 25 people here. So we will be sending more people home today.
“So we will be going back to the drawing board tonight to increase that to 50 or 75.”
Dr. Kennedy told journalists that Liberia and her American counterparts in the Partnership for Research on Ebola Vaccines in Liberia (Prevail), would establish other trial posts around the country.
“We intend to enroll a huge number of people in the long period of time. Redemption [Hospital] cannot be the only site to enter all 27,000 people we intend to enroll. We had identified, initially, 10 sites in Montserrado and Margibi. We will renovate those sites and roll out the vaccines. The next is JFK [John F. Kenney Memorial Medical Center].
“Initially, when we sat at the drawing board the plan was one site at a time, but I can say now, based on the enthusiasm that we are going to get to the drawing board and say that we will open two additional sites the next time. Every site we will open will run simultaneously with the previous sites.”
Dr. Kennedy spoke minutes after he alongside Dr. Francis Kateh, also member of the Partnership for Research on Ebola Vaccines in Liberia (Prevail), took the trail vaccine in a move to prove the transparency, flawlessness and safety of the vaccines.
There are two vaccines in this study—the cAd3EBO-Z, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the rVSV-ZEBOV, manufactured by NewLink/Merck—one of which will be given to each volunteer.
“If they see my picture in the newspapers tomorrow and hear me on the radio and on the television stations, they will be encouraged to come and take the vaccine and be a part of history in the making.
“We spent several months to demonstrate that there is a need to bring vaccine in Liberia to test. We have also told the Liberian people that everything we’ve done we’ve done with a high level of integrity, transparency. So if I tell the Liberian people that we have examined these data, we have done all the things we think we can do and we feel the vaccine is appropriate for Liberian and then we should serve as ambassadors.”
How volunteers are recruited
Trackers, mostly from the New Kru Town community, recruit volunteers for the vaccine trial. They (trackers) get the names, contacts and other info from volunteers and schedule them for the vaccination process.
These trackers also follow up on volunteers once they have taken the vaccine. They check on volunteers two times a week for the first two weeks and once for the remaining part of the month.
Community mobilization is being done by the Liberian Crusaders for Peace.