Categories
COVID-19 General Vaccines

Solidarity Trial Vaccines enters major new phase, recruiting now

Solidarity Trial Vaccines, an international clinical study of candidate COVID-19 vaccines coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and administered in Mali by CVD-Mali, is now recruiting for its exciting new phase.

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on our lives in ways many of us have never experienced before. Millions of people across the world have died from the disease, and although remarkable scientific work has led to the development of a number of successful vaccines, many countries, including Mali, still do not have access to them. This is why it is still so important to find vaccines that can protect people from existing and emerging variants of COVID-19 which, two and a half years after the start of the pandemic, is still a major global problem.

Recruiting 150,000 new participants

Almost 9 000 participants have already taken part in the trial in Mali. Now, a new candidate vaccine has been introduced. Developed by Codagenix and the Serum Institute of India, the vaccine is conveniently delivered as a single-dose nasal spray. We are now recruiting a further 150,000 participants in districts around Kita, Djoliba and Siby to help us evaluate the effectiveness of this new vaccine.

All candidate vaccines in the trial have been carefully selected by leading international experts, after first trial phases showed their potential to be safe and effective.

CVD-Mali Director General, Professor Samba Sow, said:

Every participant and community in the trial has made a contribution to finding new, safe and effective vaccines for Mali and for the world, and we are grateful for your support.

Prof. Samba O Sow

To find out more, and to take part in this important trial, please email STV@cvd-mali.org, or phone CVD-Mali on +223 20 23 60 31.

What are the Solidarity Trial Vaccines?
Categories
COVID-19 General

Prof Sow joins Bill Gates to promote a truly global pandemic response taskforce

As COVID-19 has slipped down the news agenda in recent months, it may be tempting to think that the worst is now behind us and that we can all put our feet up and relax again.

As an important new book amply demonstrates, however, doing so would be a huge mistake.

On 6 May 2022, CVD-Mali Director-general, Professor Samba Sow, was delighted to join Bill Gates at the Paris launch of his latest book, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.

L to R: Prof Samba Sow, Bill Gates, Dr Sylvie Briand, Dr Ilona Kickbusch. Photo by Krystal Kenney (MissParisPhoto.com).

The book is a call for a robust and fully functional global health management initiative, to ensure that we are not caught unawares when the next pandemic hits us.

Gather strength in peace time

Mr Gates proposes that a new “Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization” initiative be set up, to ensure that we do all that we can to start those preparations now.

Now is absolutely the time to ensure that we have proper surveillance systems, to cover the entire globe and capture the early signals not only of new COVID-19 variants but also of the next potentially even more deadly pandemic.