People in Greater Manchester take part in new Covid vaccine tests

More than twelve hundred people in Greater Manchester are taking part in trials of a new Covid-19 vaccine. The city region is the highest recruiting region in the country.

Initial findings indicate that the Novavax drug is 89.3% effective, according to interim analysis of Phase III data.

In Greater Manchester, the study has been carried out by local research teams at twocommunity sites. Stockport NHS Foundation Trust recruited seven hundred and sixty two people to take part in the trial, and the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group recruited four hundred and eighty participants in Oldham.

The UK phase 3 trial is a randomised, placebo-controlled, observer-blinded trial during which fifty percent of the volunteers were given two intramuscular injections of the vaccine candidate, twenty one days apart, while the remaining received a placebo.