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Nearly half of parents are willing to accept ‘less rigorous’ testing of COVID vaccine: UBC

There are currently more than 180 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in development
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This September 2020 photo provided by Johnson & Johnson shows a single-dose COVID-19 vaccine being developed by the company. Johnson & Johnson is beginning a huge final study to try to prove if the single-dose vaccine can protect against the coronavirus. (Cheryl Gerber/Courtesy of Johnson & Johnson via AP)

Nearly half of parents surveyed in a recent University of B.C. study said they would be willing to accept an abridged testing process for a COVID-19 vaccine.

The study, published in Clinical Therapeutics, surveyed more than 2,500 families from Canada, Israel, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United States who visited 17 different emergency departments between the end of March to the end of June.

Researchers asked the parents whether they would accept a “less rigorous” testing regime for the COVID-19 vaccine in exchange for faster approval, and found that 42 per cent of parents would. Fathers were more likely than mothers to accept a faster vaccine, as were parents whose children were up-to-date on their vaccines.

“While the safety of vaccines given to children is paramount, our study indicates that parents are eager to vaccinate their children against COVID-19 and many are supportive of expedited vaccine research development and regulatory approval,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Ran Goldman, professor in the UBC faculty of medicine’s department of paediatrics.

There are currently more than 180 COVID-19 vaccine candidates in development, some of whom been allowed to fast-track the process. Canada has signed vaccine deals with multiple companies, most recently Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline in September. Researchers here at home are looking into whether a tuberculosis vaccine can provide immunity against the novel coronavirus.


@katslepian

katya.slepian@bpdigital.ca

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