Moderna, the company behind one of the UK’s COVID vaccines, has been speaking to members of under-served communities and others, including Aberdeen’s Prof Shaun Treweek and one of our public contributors, Noura El Masri, about how to address inequality in clinical trials.
This has led to an approach called ACT– Accessible; Convenient; Trusted – that Moderna will promote in its trials, as well as in discussion with others such as the UK Government and regulators. Both Noura and Shaun attended the Scottish launch event for ACT held at the Scottish Parliament on 12th March 2024. In the words of Noura:
“I was very happy when I got the invitation and excited for this chance and also the topic it is connected with the topics, we discuss at HSRU. It was an amazing meeting; I met many people from different backgrounds and different places in the UK. As well as I got to know that there is minister for women’s health in Scotland, which was interesting.
The discussion included different areas about the clinical trials, but the most important area in my point of view was the unique barriers to clinical trials access in Scotland and how they might be removed. Identifying the barriers and how they could be overcome is very important because by removing these barriers more people will be encouraged to participate in clinical trials. One of the barriers I wanted to mention is the language which I think and based on experiences I saw is a big issue for a lot of people as it the way of communicating with others. I’ve seen many people struggling with things due to the language barrier, even when they get ill, they don’t contact the GP because are afraid to deliver a wrong information about their health.”
Aberdeen’s link with Moderna continues, with an update to the ACT initiative planned for later this year.