Mass vaccination against Covid prides volunteers in studies

In early August 2020, when the city of São Paulo had almost 10,000 deaths from Covid-19 and 240,000 confirmed cases of the disease, Antonio Luís Mota Moreira, DJ Tonyy, 58, stopped in front of the TV to watch a report on the recruitment of volunteers for the third phase of testing Pfizer’s vaccine against the new coronavirus.

There he saw a chance to give his wife more security, digital marketing manager Tatiana Dinato, 36, from the risk group for being asthmatic. The two overcame the fear of participating in an uncertain project and, the next morning, they were in the laboratory responsible for recruiting in the south of São Paulo.

Tonyy and Tatiana are part of the group of more than 55,000 people who have participated in clinical studies of vaccines against Covid-19 in Brazil since 2020, according to Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency). In all, 11 projects have been approved. Worldwide, there are 326 vaccines in development, of which 132 are in clinical trials.

Tatiana, by the way, did not intend to apply for volunteer work. “I said he was crazy, afraid of being widowed or getting sick later, like in the movies,” said the marketing manager, who said she was convinced over the phone when talking to a laboratory representative.

In the end, Tony, who wanted to advance the woman’s vaccination, is the one who was immunized. She received placebo, the substance injected into the volunteer who does not have the vaccine substances.

DJ took the first dose five months before the start of general vaccination, on January 17, 2021, the month in which Tatiana was finally immunized in the Pfizer project.

Both have not been infected by the new coronavirus, have already taken the third dose and will be monitored for two years by the project, which has periodic visits for exams, medical follow-up, an application to fill in a questionnaire about the state of health and even a kit for test for covid at home.

​”It was the most important thing I did in my life. I volunteered for a vaccine that is saving lives”, says the DJ, about a common feeling among the volunteers heard by the leaf​, pride for having collaborated with studies that a year after the start of the vaccination campaign ensured the complete immunization of 145 million people in the country against a disease that has killed more than 620,000 people.

“I saw a lot of bad things in this pandemic, sad, so when I heard about the possibility of volunteering for the vaccine, I thought I could contribute to the health of other people”, said nurse Jane Cristina Dias Alves, 44, coordinator of the ICU (Unit intensive care unit) at Hospital São Paulo, in the south of the capital.

Jane was a volunteer at Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo) for the development of AstraZeneca. She received the first dose in July 2020. And she only knew that she had been immunized for real in January 2021, when the vaccination of health professionals began and there was the opening of the “blindness”, which informs if the person received the vaccine or placebo. .

The nurse, despite working in an ICU that was a reference in the treatment of critically ill patients with Covid-19, did not catch the disease. He credits this to the care he maintained, the healthy diet, the practice of sports and the vaccine he took before most of his colleagues in the hospital. And took the volunteering home. The father, retired Valter Dias Alves, 72, was part of Unifesp’s studies for the application of AstraZeneca in the elderly. “I heard that they would do the study in the elderly group, and he was excited.”

Jane had no reactions to the injection, even though she was vaccinated. What did not happen to nurse Cecília Tavares, 42, a volunteer for studies at Coronavac. Technical supervisor of the municipal health network in Vila Alpina, on the east side, she said she felt the discomfort reported by some people who are vaccinated. “But it is an immense pride to participate in a project like these.”

Immunized when the campaign opened to the public, she caught Covid-19 in April last year. “I was infected after contact with a family that had three deaths,” he said.

“I was not afraid when I contracted Covid, for the guarantee of vaccination, I felt very strengthened”, said the nurse who reported the criticism made by colleagues when signing up for the study program. “They said I would be a guinea pig, but I had the satisfaction of accomplishment.”

Cesar de Almeida Neto, a hematologist at Dasa Hospital 9 de Julho, in Bela Vista, in the central region, said he was called crazy when he said he would volunteer for the AstraZeneca studies. And don’t forget that September 27, 2020, when he took the first dose of a placebo at Unifesp.

“At the time I thought that if we were going to need these vaccines, people would need to volunteer. I was without fear”, said he, who, without having been immunized in the study, took the first dose of Coronavac on January 20, when the vaccine was administered to doctors at the 9 de Julho Hospital. “I didn’t think I had the right not to accept Coronavac because I was in the research [da AstraZeneca], to even ensure the safety of my patients.”

The doctor was immunized three days after nurse Monica Calazans, 55, another volunteer who received a placebo, was the first person to be vaccinated against Covid outside a study group in the country.

The nurse at Instituto Emílio Ribas, who recently joined the MDB, said that she still gets emotional when she remembers that her name has gone down in history. “It has a little finger of mine and of so many other health professionals.”

“Colleagues from Hospital das Clínicas said they were recruiting health professionals over 60 years old for Coronavac tests, so I immediately said: ‘it’s me'”, jokes today Ana Escobar, 63, pediatrician and professor at the Faculty of Medicine of USP (University of São Paulo), which received the second dose of the vaccine in December 2020.

The doctor, who was infected with the virus last year and had mild symptoms, said it was a “giant pleasure” to participate in something that is happening all over the world and that she still uses scientific arguments to convince others to get vaccinated.

“Many called me brave, that I was co-opted,” said biologist Cristina Piratininga Jatobá, 58, who took two placebos in an AstraZeneca study. “It’s just that I didn’t participate in the project out of an act of courage, but to collaborate with science”, said the also theater photographer, who needs to do periodic tests for Covid-19 to be able to participate in public notices and discovered volunteering through friends from Paulista School of Medicine.

For Thiago Cuesta da Silva, 41, who works in ICUs at São Paulo and Samaritano Paulista hospitals, the volunteers can be considered “pilots who caught a broken plane”.

“You had to beat your chest and try to find something that would stop everything that was happening at that time,” said the nursing technician, who was part of the Oxford/AstraZeneca studies.