Volunteers from the West Devon and East Cornwall are being invited to come forward to take part in a trial of a new vaccine for the Omicron strain of Covid-19 at local hospitals.

The trial is being conducted by biotech company Moderna working with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). Derriford Hospital and the RD&E Hospital in Exeter are both taking part. The study is looking into the effectiveness of a tweaked Moderna vaccine targeting the Omicron strain. This new phase will further investigate a bivalent vaccine (one which targets multiple Covid-19 variants) from Moderna.

Half of the volunteers will receive one of Moderna’s Omicron variant vaccines, with the other half vaccinated with the commonly used standard Moderna Covid-19 vaccine (Spikevax).

Dr Ray Sheridan, principal investigator for the study at the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust, said: ‘We are excited that the Moderna vaccine updated for the Omicron strain is ready for clinical trials in the UK and that we can now offer this study through the NIHR Patient Recruitment Centre: Exeter at RD&E supported by the NIHR Clinical Research Facility: Exeter. This trial is important as we still need to protect people against getting acutely ill with the Omicron variant of covid as well as trying to prevent long covid from happening. This will help bring the pandemic under control and help everybody get back to living more normal lives again.’

Sign up for the trial at https://connect.trialscope.com/studies/7dff1448-9e85-4beb-81a4-ec4f9170c769