The two trials have shown that both the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and the Beijing Institute/CanSino vaccine are safe over the short term and that the majority of healthy people mount an immune response (Photo: STEVE PARSONS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The two trials have shown that both the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and the Beijing Institute/CanSino vaccine are safe over the short term and that the majority of healthy people mount an immune response (Photo: STEVE PARSONS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

ScienceJuly 21, 2020

Siouxsie Wiles: A ray of light amid Covid clouds – what the vaccine news means

Contributing writer
The two trials have shown that both the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and the Beijing Institute/CanSino vaccine are safe over the short term and that the majority of healthy people mount an immune response (Photo: STEVE PARSONS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The two trials have shown that both the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and the Beijing Institute/CanSino vaccine are safe over the short term and that the majority of healthy people mount an immune response (Photo: STEVE PARSONS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Results of two vaccine trials are in and the news is encouraging. Siouxsie Wiles explains what it all means, and what happens next.

As the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 approaches 15 million, with more than 600,000 deaths around the world, there is at least some positive news on the vaccine front. The results of two early-phase vaccine trials have just been published and they are as good as we could hope for.

What are the vaccines?

These new studies tested the ChAdOx1-S vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford and supported by AstraZeneca, and the Ad5-vectored vaccine, developed by the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and CanSino Biologics.

Both these vaccines are based on weakened forms of cold viruses (adenoviruses) that aren’t able to replicate in human cells and that have been engineered to express the spike protein from the Covid-19 virus. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine uses an adenovirus originally from chimps and the Beijing Institute/CanSino vaccine uses a human adenovirus.

What does “early-phase trials” mean?

Early-phase vaccine trials (known as phase 1 and phase 2 trials) test vaccine candidates in small numbers of healthy people (usually in the tens to hundreds) over a short timeframe to see if the vaccines are safe and what the most common short-term side effects are. They may also look at different doses of the vaccine.

These particular two trials also looked to see if people made an immune response in the form of antibodies that would be able to neutralise the Covid-19 virus or T-cells that would be able to kill virus-infected cells. What early-phase trials are not able to tell us is whether the vaccines actually work to protect people from Covid-19. That’s what phase 3 trials are all about.

What are the main findings of the two studies?

The studies have shown that both the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and the Beijing Institute/CanSino vaccine are safe over the short term and that the majority of healthy people mount an immune response.

In the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine study, 1,077 healthy adults aged 18-55 and mostly white were given either the ChAdOx1-S vaccine or a control in the form of a widely used meningitis vaccine. People receiving ChAdOx1-S were more likely to report feeling tired or having a headache or some tenderness where they were injected, but these side effects were reduced by taking paracetamol. More than 90% of people generated neutralising antibodies, and everyone mounted a T-cell response. Ten people were given a second booster dose of the vaccine and that worked well too.

In the Beijing Institute/CanSino study, 508 healthy people aged 18-83 were given either one of two different doses of the Ad5-vectored vaccine or a placebo. Again, more people receiving the vaccine than the placebo experienced side effects including fever, tiredness, headache, or pain at the injection site. About 85% of people made neutralising antibodies and more than 90% mounted a T-cell response. An important finding was that people older than 55 years of age had lower antibody responses than younger people. This might be because older people are more likely to have been exposed in the past to the human adenovirus used as the vaccine backbone and might mean this vaccine may not be as effective in older people.

Do these studies mean we’ll see a Covid-19 vaccine rolled out soon?

No. Or at least not widely. Phase 3 trials of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine are now under way in Brazil, the UK and South Africa. These are designed to be a year long and to test one versus two doses of the vaccine against the meningitis vaccine as a control. If you’re interested, the study participant information sheet for the UK arm of the trial is online here. Some of the participants in the trial will get a weekly swab for Covid-19. As well as continuing to look at safety and side effects, the researchers will be looking to see if more people who get the meningitis control vaccine come down with Covid-19 compared to those receiving the experimental vaccine.

As the pandemic continues accelerating, I imagine if it starts to look like the vaccine is protective, the researchers will apply for some kind of compassionate use approval to be able to give the vaccine more widely. This was what was done during trials of Ebola vaccines that started looking promising. That might mean vaccinating people in Covid-19 hotspots who are either at highest risk of becoming infected or those at risk of having a bad outcome. That strategy will have to be balanced with whether the vaccine is safe for older people or those with underlying health issues, a question which I’m not sure the current phase 3 trial will actually answer.

Are there other ways to see if these vaccines work?

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Another strategy being proposed by the Oxford researchers to test whether their vaccine works is to carry out human challenge studies. This means vaccinating people and then deliberately infecting them with the Covid-19 virus. I’m not in favour of this approach at all. Not only is it extremely risky, but I have lots of questions as to how you would properly replicate the natural exposure of people to the virus.

In summary, the two new studies give us plenty of reasons to be cautiously optimistic that a vaccine for Covid-19 will be developed. But we will need to be patient a little longer to find out whether either of these candidates are actually able to protect people from Covid-19. And if they do, then scaling up production and delivery will be the next big challenge.

To bring the pandemic under control, any vaccine will have to be available to everyone, not just the countries and communities that can afford to pay big bucks for it. On that front, it’s good to see that AstraZeneca has already committed to support access to the vaccine at no profit during the pandemic. The company recently agreed a licence with the Serum Institute of India to supply one billion doses for low- and middle-income countries. It looks like hundreds of millions of doses will also be available through agreements with Europe’s Inclusive Vaccines Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and the global vaccine alliance Gavi.

Keep going!
Nigel wooing his concrete bird (Screenshot: YouTube/Friends of Mana Island)
Nigel wooing his concrete bird (Screenshot: YouTube/Friends of Mana Island)

OPINIONScienceJuly 19, 2020

The nation must honour Nigel the gannet, lovesick New Zealand hero

Contributing writer
Nigel wooing his concrete bird (Screenshot: YouTube/Friends of Mana Island)
Nigel wooing his concrete bird (Screenshot: YouTube/Friends of Mana Island)

New Zealand has erected statues and carried out elaborate tributes for a ragtag collection of fools and racists. Hayden Donnell asks why we haven’t we memorialised one of our greatest residents, Nigel the gannet.

To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love

– Oscar Wilde

Mana Island is ragged and windswept in winter. Tussocky outcrops slope down to rocky beaches. There are no roads. Few people. The only way to get around is on foot. 

If you walk across the island and travel down a small path to its western cliffs, you’ll find a clearing filled with lifeless stone gannets. The site seems harsh and inhospitable, devoid of life. But five years ago, it became the setting for one of New Zealand’s greatest love stories when the fake birds were joined by one live gannet.

Nobody knows where Nigel the gannet came from. Nobody knows where he went when he wasn’t on Mana Island. There are no gannet colonies nearby. No places for him to travel to or from. All we know is that he arrived sometime in 2015, drawn by the clifftop location, the white-capped waves and, most importantly, by a piece of concrete painted to look like a real gannet.

Nigel landed and built a nest with that inanimate, decoy bird. It would’ve been a remarkable, if short, romance if he had left after a season. Instead, Nigel stayed with his stone companion. For three years he dwelt alongside it, doting and dutifully carrying out his role as its mate. Whenever he left Mana, he would eventually be drawn back by the tractor beam of love.

Nigel died in 2018, his body discovered alongside his concrete partner by Mana’s former ranger Chris Bell. By then, word of his lonely vigil had spread around the world. His passing was covered by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the BBC. “Nigel the lonely gannet dies as he lived, surrounded by concrete birds,” The Guardian’s headline read.

Then the cameras went away. Reporters moved on to memorialise other lonely animals, including George the snail, Trevor the duck and Sudan the white rhino. Though Nigel is remembered fondly, little has been written on him since his death, outside of a DOC blog posted on Valentine’s Day. 

This is what happened when the coverage cut off: Nigel’s body was packaged and transported across the channel between Mana Island and Titahi Bay. He was taken to a DOC facility in Porirua where he was placed in a freezer filled with the corpses of other birds. The lid slammed shut and Nigel remains there to this day, entombed in ice.

There were some early calls for a memorial. Nick Fisentzidis, Mana’s current ranger, says straight after his death, Mana Island’s iwi Ngāti Toa, DOC, and volunteer group Friends of Mana talked about how to honour the island’s most famous resident. The discussions faded as the bustle of regular life returned.

Nigel and his concrete pals (Photo: Chris Bell, DOC)

But Nigel’s memory still looms large for a lot of New Zealanders. NZ Geographic’s editor Rebekah White says even today, Nigel is never far from her mind. “Nigel stands for all of us who are incapable of facing reality,” she says. “In this regard, he’s somewhat of a patron saint.”

Fisentzidis feels the same. “It was just a universal story really. It was something that lots of people could connect with, that unrequited love,” he says. “If I wear my ecology hat … I think he probably wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and passing that genetic material on probably wasn’t entirely important. But that’s not all that we look at when we look at these sort of things and he did a heck of a lot more from an advocacy point of view than just any other gannet.”

Fisentzidis says he’d be keen to see talks of a memorial revived. “I think Nigel’s story obviously affected a lot of people, not just nationally but internationally,” he says. “There’s definitely some support for continuing the story but also wrapping up the story as well.”

At this point, I’d normally call for Nigel to be honoured in Te Papa. You can’t look at the parade of losers, racists, and fools New Zealand has fêted and tell me Nigel doesn’t deserve a place in our national museum. Captain John Hamilton is famous for landing in New Zealand, dumbly shouting “follow me, men”, and getting shot in the head. He has a whole city named after him. 

I even contacted the taxidermist Peter Wells, who told me he could restore Nigel to an approximation of his former self. “If the bird has been in a freezer then there’s no reason why it can’t be mounted,” he says. “Providing the bird is kept indoors and out of direct sunlight it should last for many many years.”

Te Papa is indoors. Te Papa is out of direct sunlight. Te Papa would be perfect.

But Te Papa is not where Nigel belongs. Mana Island is his whenua. His kāinga is alongside the concrete bird he loved. 

Getting him there requires the agreement of two parties: Friends of Mana and most importantly, Ngāti Toa. Friends of Mana have not returned my messages, of which there are several. However, a spokeswoman from Ngāti Toa has expressed cautious optimism about the possibility of Nigel’s return. “I have forwarded it to our board to seek their thoughts on this,” the spokeswoman says. “We have generally opposed burials on Mana Island but this situation is a bit different.”

If they do agree to return Nigel to Mana Island, Fisentzidis knows a good spot for a memorial. There are some clearings along that small path down to the island’s western cliffs. With permission, we could take Nigel down that path one last time. He could be laid to rest in the dirt, his story on a small stone above him. Fisentzidis has plenty of spare decoy birds. He would fetch Nigel’s partner from the stone colony, and move it up the path to the memorial. The two would be together again.

Nigel spent his whole life loving, never getting anything in return. Now finally in death, we should show him the affection and respect he surely craved. It’s time to get Nigel the Gannet to Mana Island.