Today, already two vaccines has shared promising early findings. The Pfizer’s vaccine showing more 90% of efficacy and Moderna vaccine showing 95% efficacy.
The current predictions continue to project the availability of a safe and effective vaccine by the next winter. However, given the role of Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) towards early trial termination either for safety, efficacy, or futility.
What would be the role of DSMB in the COVID-19 vaccine discovery towards stop for efficacy rule?
Recently, infecting trial participants to speed up COVID-19 clinical trials has been under discussion. Given the efficacy of the mentioned vaccines, would be ethical to infect participants from those trials given that the placebo group could be injected with saline or vehicle used for COVID-19 injection?
The ethical issue can be circumvented if the participants volunteer
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/6000-uk-volunteers-to-be-injected-with-covid-vaccine-in-phase-3-trial
but some experts disagree
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8607255/Is-ethical-infect-volunteers-Covid-19-test-vaccine.html
Thank you M. Y. Shukor for the provided references, can you add your perspective on it?
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