A trial vaccine volunteer in the United Kingdom spoke up informing the public that she was doing fine after an article claiming that she was dead circulated on the internet, according to multiple reports.
The article in question reported that the volunteer, identified as Dr. Elisa Granato, a zoologist, took part in the vaccine trial on Thursday, April 23, in Oxford, but died after experiencing complications from the vaccine. Another report said that Granato had pre-existing medical conditions that were not previously disclosed to the medical officials before she was injected with the vaccine—adding that four other volunteers were also dealing with complications after their vaccine injections.
Following the spread of the article, the government stated that the information in the article was untrue and warned the public about spreading unconfirmed claims online, the Guardian reported.
Granato posted on her Twitter that she was doing fine and was ok. Her Twitter has since been made private.
“Nothing like waking up to a fake article on your death … I’m doing fine, everyone,” Granato wrote.
The Guardian reported that Granato was one of two people to be vaccinated.
The BBC reported that they are only the first selected to take part in the trial. More than 800 have been recruited.
The way the trial will work is that half of the people taking part will get the trial vaccine, whereas the other half will receive another vaccine.
BBC reported that the control group would get the vaccine that protects against meningitis, but not the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as novel coronavirus.
The trial is designed so that the volunteers won’t know who got the controlled vaccine and who received the trial vaccine.
According to the Mirror, University of Oxford microbiologist Dr. Elisa Granato said that she is a scientist, and would like to help in whatever way to support the process.
“Since I don’t study viruses, I felt a bit useless these days, so I felt like this is a very easy way for me to support the cause,” Granato said.
BBC reported that the vaccine was developed in just three months by a team at Oxford University. Sarah Gilbert, the professor of vaccinology at the Jenner Institute, who led the pre-clinical research, said that she has high confidence in the vaccine.
“Of course, we have to test it and get data from humans. We have to demonstrate it actually works and stops people from getting infected with coronavirus before using the vaccine in the wider population,” said Gilbert.
