Supporting efforts for a global COVID-19 vaccine

The rapidly developing COVID-19 global pandemic has stimulated an enormous effort to develop vaccines against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In a bid to support the international fight against COVID-19 and prevent overwhelming the NHS, local Clinical Research Networks (CRNs) were asked to swiftly set-up and deliver UK Urgent Public Health (UPH) COVID-19 clinical trials.

There are multiple vaccines for protecting people from COVID-19 at different stages of development (Krammer, 2020). Developing a vaccine has not been straightforward (Caddy, 2020).

Research infrastructure across the UK and in collaboration with higher education institutions (HEIs) is currently funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and research studies are sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. Consequently, research teams have promptly responded to the Government's urgent call to provide best available evidence and find a way out of this pandemic through robust clinical trials (University Hospital Southampton, 2020). This is certainly true of my own research team at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) NHS Foundation Trust.