Covid trial volunteer left unable to prove double vaccination

July 10, 2021 - By admin

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A volunteer during a Covid-19 vaccine trial has said it’s left her unable to travel and “invisible on the system”.

Jo Wiggans, from Littleborough in Rochdale, received two doses of the Novavax vaccine at the end of 2020.

As the jab has not been licensed within the UK, the 70-year-old said it meant she couldn’t show she had been vaccinated.

The UK’s Deputy Chief medic Prof Jonathan Van-Tam has said the government is functioning to make sure trial participants weren’t “disadvantaged”.

Mrs Wiggans volunteered to require part within the Novavak trials in November and December and said she had not been warned about any travel implications at the time.

In January, the US-based firm posted positive results for its UK trial and therefore the government later confirmed 60 million doses were set to be produced at a factory in Stockton-on-Tees, but the vaccine is yet to be approved within the UK.

“My husband can go, because he had the Pfizer vaccine,” she said.

“I thought I used to be doing an honest thing, but it isn’t on my record.

“I’m invisible to the system and therefore the results that France won’t let me in, because I cannot provide evidence that I even have been vaccinated.”

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“I really think this is often unjust and massively unfair,” she added.

The UK is currently on the French amber list, meaning who isn’t fully vaccinated is merely permitted to enter the country for essential reasons.

He said “clearly, individual countries control their own policies and exemptions”, but discussions were “ongoing with other countries… to shape the approach taken round the world to sharing health status for travel, including vaccination status”, and therefore the G7 nations, which incorporates France, had “committed thereto approach”.

In a statement issued in June, Novavax said it “firmly believes that clinical test participants shouldn’t be disadvantaged with reference to providing proof of vaccination”.

“We still work with the National Health Service, Vaccine Task Force and National Institute for Health Research, in order that those that received [the vaccine] will soon have their vaccination dates entered into the NHS app,” the firm said.