Narrow escape for the vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, together with the multinational AstraZeneca and the research center of Pomezia, Irbm. It seemed that the problems that emerged with one of the 50 volunteers in the experimental phase would have slowed down the tests, and instead an independent commission of experts in the United Kingdom gave the green light to the resumption of experimentation. In fact, in recent days there had been a suspension because one of the volunteers had developed a suspicious reaction, spinal inflammation.
The verification carried out by the independent technical committee has therefore established that there is no connection with the vaccine and therefore the experimentation can start again. This is the vaccine in which Italy, together with other European countries, has invested the most resources with the hope of having the first doses, for some categories of citizens, as early as November. The suspension of the trials had fueled pessimism, yesterday's turning point seems to go in the direction of optimism, even prudence is always necessary.
“This is not a game – commented Piero Di Lorenzo, president of IRBM -. Scientists take responsibility to the world. The lack of relationship between the vaccine candidate and the adverse event was evident, given that the commission expressed its opinion within 24 hours of the meeting. It really means that there is not the slightest doubt. If it had been a controversial fact, the commission would have taken much longer, perhaps months. Instead it was all very fast. There are hitches in the path of a vaccine candidate. This time the thing was given publicity precisely to avoid conspiracy theories, since it was an experiment in the end. But when a Phase 3 trial is done, since they are not healthy volunteers, but also with important pathologies, it is physiological and routine that there may be adverse manifestations. Then in 99,9% of cases it is shown that there is no relationship with the vaccine candidate. In this case, if there had been even a single doubt, the commission would have taken much more time".
