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AFP, published Tuesday 17 November 2020 at 20:53
One of the crucial elements in the frenzied race for a coronavirus vaccine is the recruitment of tens of thousands of people ready to participate in clinical trials. AFP Miami correspondent Leila Macor is one of them.
Leila participated in the phase 3 studies of Moderna, the American biotech company that announced on Monday that its experimental Covid-19 vaccine was nearly 95% effective.
Why did our journalist, who is asthmatic, decide to try? Here he tells firsthand about his experience, which began a few weeks after his father died from the virus.
– A story in two doses –
My father died of Covid in Chile, three weeks before clinical trials with Pfizer and Moderna began at the end of July.
He died alone, as did the people who succumb to this virus. So only that in his delirium he was convinced that he had been kidnapped.
While my siblings, my mother, and I tried to cope with the loss, I had to face another reality: Miami, and Florida in general, was the new epicenter of the virus that killed my father. And my job was also to cover this story and the other deaths.
The idea of doing anything, however small, to help overcome this plague that was killing our people and disrupting our lives was cathartic enough that I tried.
I have talked about it to friends and family. They all helped me conclude that the risk of a potential vaccine side effect for an asthmatic like me would be less than the risk of me getting sick from the virus.
And I decided to participate.
Two days after writing a story for AFP about starting Phase 3 clinical trials in Florida, I knocked on the center’s door again, but this time as a subject of study.
– Vaccine or placebo? –
America’s research centers in Hollywood (north of Miami) were participating in the Pfizer and Moderna trials. One day one, one day the other. I went there on a Tuesday: it was Moderna.
At the same time, dozens of other centers in the country were also recruiting volunteers. Anyone could apply, as long as the chances of getting infected were high: doctors, taxi drivers … journalists.
I was put a sticker with my name on it and taken to an office, where I was told what I would read later in a 22 page document. That there were two doses. That we would be paid $ 2,400 during the two-year trial.
I was told what side effects to expect (pain where I would get the injection, fever, chills). That we were 30,000, divided into two groups: one half would receive the vaccine, the other a placebo.
“We don’t even know which one it is,” the nurse told me when I tried to find out if I would get a placebo. Only Moderna will know when it’s time to analyze the data.
“What if I get tested for antibodies?”, I asked.
It won’t necessarily give a correct result, he replied.
“Uncertainty will kill me!” I exclaimed.
The nurse then looked up, telling me very seriously, “Placebos are as important as vaccines. You can’t go through the process without the control group. You’re helping humanity, whatever.” your group.
I felt guilty, obsessed with it, and stopped asking the question.
– Ordinary Tuesday –
They also took blood samples from me to fill six or eight tubes, I lost count. I was given a pregnancy test. And they were very firm on the necessary contraceptive intake: “We do not yet know the effect of the vaccine on the fetus”, I was told several times.
Then came two people with the vaccine in a cooler. Or the placebo, then.
They laughed when I asked them to take a picture of the injection for me.
What was a historic moment for me was just a normal Tuesday for them.
It wasn’t painful. I was then taken to a waiting room, where I was kept under observation for half an hour. Three or four volunteers were looking at their phones. A Cuban nurse wore a cloak, Superman’s red cloak.
“Why the cloak?” I asked him.
“Because we are all heroes here, my dear,” he told me.
I was given several stickers, a t-shirt and a mask, all with the message “Covid Warriors” and a drawing showing a superhero fighting the virus.
I was also made to download an app designed for studying, where I occasionally need to enter my temperature and symptoms.
When I got home, the injection site hurt a little. Was I actually given the vaccine? I spent the next three days looking online to see if an injection of physiological saline (which is placebo) could cause pain. Without finding a clear answer.
The second dose was given to me a month later, in mid-September. This time the pain was more severe and the injection site remained warm and swollen for two days.
A few days later, I realized that participating in the clinical trial had been a way of grieving me. For my father and the crazy world the virus has left us.
Small as it was, it was the only weapon I could wield.
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