A shocking revelation has come to the light as per which, about 1,500 volunteers in a late-stage clinical trial of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine were injected wrong dose but were not informed about the mishap even after it came to the knowledge of the authorities.
A letter obtained by the Reuters News agency has revealed that the volunteers were given half-dose due to a measuring mistake by Oxford researchers but the participants weren't informed about the blunder.
According to the report, the blunder regarding wrong dose was instead presented to the trial participants in a letter dated June 8 as an opportunity for University of Oxford researchers to learn how well the vaccine works at different doses.
The letter was reportedly signed by the trial's chief investigator, Oxford professor Andrew J. Pollard.
The report stated that the letter sent to the trial subjects did not acknowledge any error, neither did it disclose that researchers had reported the issue to British medical regulators when later told Oxford to add another test group to receive the full dose as per the trail's initial plan.
As quoted by Reuters, Steve Pritchard, a spokesman for Oxford said, "The half-dose group was unplanned, but we did know in advance that there was a discrepancy in the dose measurements and discussed this with the regulators before dosing and when the dosing was revised."
"We have not stated that a dosing error occurred," Pritchard added.
The recent revelation has raised several concerns against the British-developed vaccine which is being rolled out across the UK and has been touted as a low-cost weapon against the Coronavirus pandemic.