USC’s Keck School Seeks Volunteers For COVID-19 Vaccine Trial

LOS ANGELES (KABC) – USC’s Keck School of Medicine, along with the Vernon Department of Health, are recruiting volunteers in a Phase 3 clinical trial to test an investigational vaccine against COVID-19.

Keck Medicine of USC is seeking 500 volunteers for the trial – particularly those participants most at risk of contracting the virus, including those from black and brown communities, those over 65, and factory workers.

Researchers are looking to enroll 30,000 people across the country and 500 in Los Angeles.

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The trial will take place at two sites: USC’s Keck Hospital in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, and a satellite location in Vernon.

Keck Medicine of USC will test the safety and efficacy of an investigational vaccine called AZD1222 produced by AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, UK, and funded by the US Authority for Advanced Biomedical Research and Development and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Maladies.

“The Vernon Department of Health is proud to collaborate with USC’s Keck Medicine on this critically important medical investigation which, if successful, could result in a safe and effective vaccine to provide immunity to hundreds of people. millions of Americans against the virus that causes COVID-19 that claimed the lives of nearly 170,000 men, women and children in the United States, more than 760,000 people worldwide, ” said Fredrick Agyin, director of the Department of Health and Environment Control of Vernon.

“We look forward to working closely with the Vernon business community and union leaders to recruit the volunteers needed to participate in what could be a watershed in the public health battle against COVID-19. ”

More information can be found at www.cityofvernon.org/departments/health.

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City News Service contributed to this report.