A South African scientist has been invited to serve on a 12-member expert panel of the US-based Data and Safety Monitoring Board for the first coronavirus vaccine clinical trials, APA learnt on Tuesday.
Malegapuru Makgoba, who is currently the country’s Health Ombudsman and interim chairman of the power utility Eskom, is also an academician with the rank of professor.
The invitation to serve on the distinguished panel was issued by the United States government, which appointed the scientist to join 11 other scientists, physicians, ethicists and biostatisticians from the US, Brazil and Britain.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, members of the board under it were selected based on their expertise and experience in the health field.
The board is responsible for ensuring the safety of participants, the efficacy and immunogenicity of the candidate vaccine being tested or on trial — and it is the final structure to pronounce on vaccine approvals.
The recommendations of the board would have an enormous impact on the overall global response, including South Africa’s, to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the appointing authority.
While the board was independent of investigators, organisations, and institutions conducting the current vaccine clinical trials, it has the authority to recommend that a trial be stopped early should there be concerns of participant safety.
Eskom said: “We are proud that an African scientist associated with Eskom has been given this recognition.
“We are confident that Professor Makgoba will lend his skill to the fight against the pandemic and discharge his scientific expertise to the benefit of all humanity.”
South Africa has conducted over 1.8 million tests, identified 205,721 coronavirus cases, with 3,310 of them succumbing to the disease, and 98,000 of the Covid-19 patients having recovered from it, according to the local health ministry.
NM/jn/APA