AstraZeneca announced that it was restarting phase three coronavirus vaccine trials after they were paused when a participant became ill.
The pharmaceutical giant announced the resumption on Saturday after the trials were put on hold on Sunday. The patient in question, a woman, was from the United Kingdom and reportedly suffered a rare spinal cord injury.
AstraZeneca did not disclose further information about the illness in its Saturday statement but said that it was “committed to the safety of trial participants and the highest standards of conduct in clinical trials.” It said the review found that it was safe to resume testing.
“The U.K. committee has concluded its investigations and recommended to the [Medicines Health Regulatory Authority] that trials in the U.K. are safe to resume,” the company said. “AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, as the trial sponsor, cannot disclose further medical information. All trial investigators and participants will be updated with the relevant information, and this will be disclosed on global clinical registries, according to the clinical trial and regulatory standards.”
The vaccine’s phase three trial is looking to include 50,000 participants in both the U.K. and the United States. AstraZeneca is one of three companies, including Moderna and Pfizer, that have phase three trials underway in the U.S.