Unions, activists call for Cape Town Covid-19 clinical trial to be stopped

Labour unions including Cosatu representatives, as well as local and international advocacy groups, are calling for a Cape Town Covid-19 trial to be stopped, citing concerns about the study’s lack of transparency and community engagement. 

The groups also demand that the trial’s investigators provide volunteer participants — health workers and other types of hospital employees such as security guards and administrative clerks — are given  protective gear. 

In May, the Cape Town-based clinical research organisation, TASK, began a clinical trial to see if a common TB shot — the Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine normally given to newborns — could help protect hospital workers from developing serious Covid-19. The 500-person study is one of 10 such trials underway globally.

There is currently no evidence showing that BCG offers protection against Covid-19, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says. But some researchers believe the vaccine holds the possibility to help our bodies fight off a range of illnesses other than TB — they hope that trials such as the South African one will hold the key to understanding more about this potential.

But now organisations such as South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign, unions and the Vaccine Advocacy Resource Group (Varg) are calling for the trial to be suspended saying researchers have not provided satisfactory information on how community consultation was done around the study. Lingering concerns also remain, the groups say, about a lack of personal protective gear (PPE) such as masks and gloves given to hospital workers in the study.

Activists demand that the trial must be re-reviewed by the regulatory bodies that cleared it to begin enrolling volunteers, including the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) before it can resume, according to a statement released on Friday night. 

A similar review, organisations argue, must also be done by the independent research ethics committee at the Cape Town firm, Pharma-Ethics, which provided initial ethical clearance for the study.

This article originally appeared on News24

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