Participants who took part in a trial of the Novovax vaccine have been told they received the drug and were protected from Covid-19.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said it was rare to 'unblind' study participants but was necessary in this case to determine if they should attend vaccination appointments.
A total of 15,000 people across the UK took part in the study including 517 people from the greater Glasgow area.
Of those involved 39% (204) found out if they had received the US Novavax vaccine or the placebo.
Preliminary trial data shows the vaccine is 95.6% effective against the original variant of SARS-CoV-2 and offers protection against the newer variants B.1.1.7 (85.6%) and B.1.351 (60%).
Anni Donaldson, 68, was among those who received the vaccine in the Glasgow cohort of the trial.
She said: “It was incredible news. It felt absolutely amazing, and I even felt retrospectively happy for myself all over the last few months knowing I had had protection and not realised it.
“Last summer when I signed up for the trial, we all knew a vaccine was our way out of this but none had been approved yet. I’m a child of the 1950s and have benefited from vaccines all my life.”
Chloe Cowan, Clinical Research Manager, NHSGGC, said: “We would rarely unblind participants during a clinical trial so this is quite unique.
“Once the participant has been offered the vaccine, we unblind them straight away to see whether or not they should attend without delay. This means we can cancel the appointment if they had already received it and offer the slot to someone else.
“Thanks to the efficiency and speed of the roll-out of the national vaccine programme, many of our participants have already found out their result.”
As well as contributing to the Novavax trial, NHSGGC was involved in trials of the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine, and the RECOVERY trial which resulted in the first effective treatment of Covid-19.”
The health board is currently recruiting members of the public to help test new Covid-19 treatment if they have been recently diagnosed with the virus.
The study, Glasgow Early Treatment Arm Favipiravir (GETAFIX), will assess the effectiveness of an antiviral tablet to help with symptoms and reduce the time it takes to recover from COVID-19.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here