Covid vaccine volunteer reveals he suffered fever, headache and chills 14 hours after jab as trial halted
AN OXFORD vaccine volunteer has told how he suffered fever and chills 14 hours after having the anti-Covid jab. The worrying claims come after the Oxford AstraZeneca trial was put on hold when a Brit volunteer suffered a “serious adverse reaction.” Researchers paused the crucial medical experiments to allow them to investigate exactly what happened to the […]
AN OXFORD vaccine volunteer has told how he suffered fever and chills 14 hours after having the anti-Covid jab.
The worrying claims come after the Oxford AstraZeneca trial was put on hold when a Brit volunteer suffered a “serious adverse reaction.”
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Researchers paused the crucial medical experiments to allow them to investigate exactly what happened to the trial participant.
Now one unnamed volunteer – who had his first jab in May – has told the Mail Online exactly what happened to him.
He revealed after his jab he woke up in the early hours freezing but with a temperature above 39C.
“I felt incredibly weak and couldn’t really get up and move so my partner had to get me a paracetamol,” he said.
“The temperature continued for about a day, and I just felt really weak and lethargic and couldn’t really do anything.”
However, another volunteer has said he is “keen and eager” to have a second dose of the vaccine.
AstraZeneca announced late on Tuesday that late-studies of the vaccine had been paused after a UK participant reported a possible side-effect.
The volunteer who spoke to the Mail said he felt so “awful” he stayed in bed for most of the second day after his dose.
He said he was due to have a booster shot on Monday but his appointment was suddenly cancelled by email the night before.
Meanwhile trial participant Jack Sommers said he can’t wait to have his second dose.
The 35-year-old freelance journalist from London, told the PA news agency he believes the Oxford University-led trial is safe.
And he added he is “mostly just disappointed” about the delay “because we are all desperate for this vaccine”.
He said he had his first injection in May and has since volunteered to have another dose.
AstraZeneca said the late-stage studies of the vaccine – which experts hope could be given to the public sometime next year – were paused to “allow review of safety data.”
Speaking alongside Boris Johnson at a Downing Street press conference on Wednesday, the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said the pausing of such a trial is not unusual.
He said similar stoppages should also be expected in some of the other ongoing vaccine candidate trials.
Mr Sommers agreed, saying it is a “statistical inevitability” that at least one patient in the 18,000 on the programme will become ill at some point.
He said: “This is so careful, it’s run by Oxford University, it’s got the Government involved and it’s got AstraZeneca backing it.
“They’ve already been through ferrets, mice and monkeys, so they’re about as certain as they can reasonably be that it’s not going to do anyone any harm.
“My sense is that anyone who volunteered in the first place will not be put off by this, because you’ve got this appreciation of the risks.”
He said he has been confronted by numerous vaccine sceptics since tweeting about taking part in the trial, and he wants to convince them there is nothing to fear.
“It’s just nonsense, it’s just the latest type of conspiracy theory that’s out there,” Mr Sommers said.
“I kind of understand that vaccines tend to alarm people and always have, and they are a slightly invasive thing.
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“You are, at the end of the day, getting an injection from someone wearing a mask who you don’t know and I completely get the human impulse to flee that.
“But they are completely safe, there’s no malign agenda and I have learned not to engage with people who tweet at me like ‘plandemic’ or ‘Bill Gates is going to kill you’ or ‘you’re a Covid-idiot’, or something like that.
“I am completely ignorant, I’m not a scientist… the question of where you fall on this I think just depends on how much you trust scientists. And I trust them very much.”