A Phase Ib Randomised, Controlled, Single-blind study to assess the safety, immunogenicity of the malaria vaccine candidate R21 With Matrix-M1 adjuvant in West African adult volunteers

The study will take place at the Centre National de Recherche et de Formation sur la Paludisme (CNRFP)/Unite de Recherche Clinique de Banfora (URC-B). Trial participants will be drawn from the Banfora Health Demographic system, which covers a total population of 30, 000.

Community sensitisation will be undertaken to engage the community with the study and recruit volunteers for participation in the study. The CNRFP study team will hold local community meetings and explain the study to the potentially eligible adult volunteers. During these meetings the investigators will explain the following: the need for a vaccine; the current status of vaccine development (including the fact that this is likely to be a prolonged process); the study screening and informed consent procedure; risks of vaccination and the unproven benefits of vaccination. It will be stressed that these are experimental vaccine regimens and cannot be guaranteed to provide protection, and that it will therefore still be necessary to seek treatment for possible malaria even after vaccination and they should continue to use other protective measures such as bed nets. It will be explained that to aid identification, a photograph of the volunteer will be taken if they are eligible to be enrolled in the trial.

After this meeting, based on the list of adults of suitable age for participation in the trial drawn from the DSS database, volunteers will be asked to participate in a public lottery that is made to randomly select participants who will be invited for a screening visit. All proposed volunteers thus selected will be invited to the Banfora clinical trials centre for the screening visit.

The Volunteer Information Sheet (VIS) will contain detailed information about the study and will be distributed to the proposed volunteers. The investigators will endeavour to ensure that all volunteers fully understand the risks. Any volunteer who appears to have less than complete understanding will be considered unable to give consent. If unable to sign, the volunteer will be asked to thumbprint the consent form in the presence of an impartial witness who will be present during the screening procedures and will countersign the consent form. Fully consented volunteers will undergo the full screening procedures. This consists of medical history, physical examination, and blood sampling for screening tests.

Volunteers will be randomised to receive either three (3) doses of R21/ Matrix-M1 or placebo (normal saline) as control. Simple randomisation into the study groups will be done by an independent statistician based at the University of Oxford. A randomisation code list will be generated by the independent statistician and its use guided by a clear Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). Allocation concealment will be employed by use of opaque sealed envelopes. As this is a single-blind clinical trial design, the laboratory scientists will be blinded to vaccine allocation until the end of the study.

Each volunteer will be monitored for one hour (or longer if necessary) after each vaccination. Each volunteer will be visited at home daily for 6 days after each vaccination (Days 0, 28, and 56) by a field worker for assessment and recording of any solicited and unsolicited AEs in diary cards. If necessary the volunteer will continue to be seen regularly until any observed AEs have resolved or stabilised. Scheduled visits at the CNRFP will be on Days 0, 7, 28, 35, 56, 63, 84, and 140. All volunteers will be followed up to Day 140 post-first vaccination for adverse events.

NCT number: NCT02925403

Study type: Interventional

Enrollment: 13 participants

Allocation: Randomized

Intervention model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single

Primary purpose: Prevention

Clinical trial registration

Product Development
Vaccines (Immune Correlates)

Aug 2016 — Feb 2017

Burkina Faso

Multi-Stage Malaria Vaccine Consortium (MMVC): A four-strike vaccine against malaria