Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine volunteer reveals he suffered fever, chills, headache and fatigue 14 hours after having anti-Covid jab - as second participant says he is 'keen and eager' to continue with paused trial
- EXCLUSIVE: Oxford vaccine volunteer reveals he 'unwell and fatigued' after shot
- Oxford-led vaccine trial was paused after a participant had possible side effects
- Jack Sommers, 35, said he was 'mostly just disappointed,' by the trial's delay
- Chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has said such a pause is not unusual
An Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine volunteer has revealed he suffered fever, chills, headache and fatigue 14 hours after having the anti-Covid jab - while a second participant says he is 'keen and eager' to continue with the paused trial.
AstraZeneca announced on Tuesday that late-studies of the vaccine had been paused after a UK participant reported a possible side-effect.
A volunteer, who received his first shot in May, told MailOnline: 'I woke up about 2am and I was freezing, but had a temperature above 39C,' the man, who asked not to be named, said.
'I felt incredibly weak and couldn't really get up and move so my partner had to get me a paracetamol.
'The temperature continued for about a day, and I just felt really weak and lethargic and couldn't really do anything.'
The volunteer said he felt so unwell and fatigued that all he could do was sleep for most of the second day after the injection.
The Oxford University-led trial (stock picture of a volunteer being injected above) has been paused after a participant reported having possible side-effects
Throughout the first two days after the jab he also had a splitting headache that made it hard to concentrate, along with persistent chills.
He said the most severe symptoms had disappeared when he woke up on the third day after taking the vaccine, but side effects continued.
'I still felt weak for a couple of days afterwards and not completely myself - although the symptoms were not as severe as the first day, which was awful,' he said.
The volunteer said he was due to have a booster shot on Monday, but the night before he received an email from the project manager cancelling the appointment.
The email read: 'As an illness in a volunteer that may or may not be related to vaccine has been identified, we are postponing clinics till we have more information.
'Illnesses happen during trials with large numbers of people (18,000 now in our trials around the world) and so we have to look at each illness carefully to assess the diagnosis to see if there is an obvious explanation.
'As is our routine practice, the case will be carefully reviewed by an independent safety monitoring committee and the UK regulator to advise when the clinics should be rescheduled.'
Covid vaccine volunteer Jack Sommers said he was 'mostly just disappointed' about the delay
Jack Sommers, 35, from London, believes the Oxford University-led trial is safe, adding he is 'mostly just disappointed' about the delay 'because we are all desperate for this vaccine'.
Speaking at yesterday's press conference the Government's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, told the country that such a pause is not unusual during trials.
He said similar stoppages should also be expected in some of the other ongoing vaccine candidate trials.
Experts hope vaccines from the AstraZeneca trial could be given to the public sometime next year.
Mr Sommers, a freelance journalist, had his first injection in May and has since volunteered to have another dose
He said: 'If I was to keel over I would have done it by now. That's why I'm not scared of having it again.'
The volunteer said he was due to have a booster shot on Monday, but the night before he received this email from the project manager cancelling the appointment
Mr Sommers said 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.'
Mr Sommers says he is keen for a second dose of Oxford University's vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCov-19 (above)
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.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government's chief scientific adviser, told yesterday's daily press conference that it's not unusual to pause medical trials at this stage
'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 - I did science GCSE and that was it, so I'm just trusting the 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.'
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