Margaret’s story: volunteering for COVID-19 vaccine research

Oxford’s Margaret and Stephen Brown took part in a clinical trial of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine from pharmaceutical company Novavax in 2020. More than 15,000 people from 33 UK sites, including Oxford’s Warneford Hospital, participated. Margaret got involved after signing up to the NHS COVID-19 vaccine research registry to be told about vaccine studies she could take part in. In February 2022, The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) authorised the vaccine for use in the UK. Here Margaret explains what it was like taking part in the study.

In mid-August 2020, I read somewhere about the formation of the NHS COVID-19 vaccine research registry and signed up. Some six weeks later we received an email inviting us to apply to join the trial for a new vaccine. There was a centre in Oxford, so we completed the online pre-screening and were told we'd be contacted.

Our motivation was essentially that this was something, albeit very small, that we could do in the fight against COVID. Apart from missing family terribly during lockdown, we hadn't suffered during it in any of the ways that so many people had, or been able to do anything, except put up with the privations, for the common good. This was a chance to contribute!

A couple of weeks later came the phone call offering an appointment the following weekend. This first one was quite long, involving careful screening, health checks, explanations about the trial and detailed consent forms. At the end came the vaccine - or the placebo - it would be a year before we found out! Three weeks or so later the second shot, then a quick visit a fortnight later for a blood sample.

It was exciting to be part of this trial, I actually looked forward to the visits. And by this stage the results and approvals were coming through for other vaccines: if they worked, 'ours' might! All the staff, at the appointments or at the other end of an email or phone, were encouraging and friendly. It was a project we were all in together, we shared excitement and frustrations. Although it was essential for the trial that a certain number of participants actually got COVID (we didn't), everybody's data counted.

I remember the elation I felt one evening at the end of January 2021 when I read that Novavax had announced interim trial results and they were good. This was going to work! A few weeks later came the final results: success. The vaccination programme in the UK was well underway by now, but I'd always hoped that Novavax - which only needs fridge temperature storage - would be a vaccine for the world, and now it will be.

My visits continued. I could have been unblinded in February 2021 when I became eligible for a deployed vaccine but decided to remain on the trial during the crossover stage, when we received the opposite - vaccine or placebo - of what we'd had in the autumn. So by 2 May I knew I'd had two doses of an excellent vaccine, but not when. I was pretty sure though and pleased to have my hunch confirmed almost six months later! Stephen had his vaccines in the first phase in Autumn 2020 while I had mine in the crossover stage in Spring 2021. We both thought this was the case and unblinding proved us right!

I felt almost sad leaving my eighth and final visit to the trial centre, it had been a special and valuable experience for us both. And a sense of pride now to have been a tiny cog in a very big wheel that has brought another vaccine to approval and deployment.