Adrian, one of the trustees of Community Action Ghana, volunteered for the Stage 3 clinical trial of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in 2020.
Adrian now gets regular invitations to take part in more research on vaccine trials. The most recent was for young and ancient (Adrian’s words, not theirs!) people to volunteer to see how the two different age groups’ lymph glands react to a Moderna Covid-19 vaccine and the flu vaccine. The research is being run by the Oxford Vaccine Group.
Adrian is in the ancient group. Most visits just weigh, measure, use Ultrasound to check on the lymph glands, take blood pressure, temperature and five or six vials of blood to see how the antibodies are forming.
Today’s visit was a bit more intrusive as they needed to sample the cells from the lymph glands in the armpits. This meant that a very fine needled syringe was used to suck out the cells from the lymph glands. The researchers will then examine them microscopically. It’s called Fine Needle Aspiration. The visit to the hospital took about two hours
What does this have to do with building toilets in Ghana? Well, the researchers pay for the time, travel, and inconvenience of being a guinea pig. In this case £880 for the eight visits.
Adrian has the University pay this directly into Community Action Ghana’s bank account. So two good things happen, valuable research is done and funds go to community toilets, water systems or libraries.
Another advantage is Adrian tells the nurses, doctors and anyone who will listen why he is doing the research. Today found a volunteer to fundraise by running a marathon for us. Watch this space so you can sponsor her.
Have you ever thought of being a medical research volunteer? Usually they want healthy people between 18 and 45 years old but sometimes they need older volunteers. Adrian being 76 years old is not a barrier.
To find out more click on Oxford Vaccine Group (ovg.ox.ac.uk) or the NIHR be part of Research (www.bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk)
Note: Community Action Ghana is not endorsing any specific medical trials – all participants sign up at their own risk, we are just informing you of some of the more unusual ways to fundraise!
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