Last Updated on April 14, 2020, 11:18 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Two years and eight months after the announcement of an investigation into an unethical herpes vaccine trial in St Kitts was made, the people of St Kitts and Nevis are still waiting for the report from the side of the Team Unity Government le by Timothy Harris.
The Ministry of Health of St Kitts and Nevis had announced in August 2017 that it had started an investigation into the use of a private residence in St. Kitts to carry out the unfair herpes vaccine trial which was orchestrated by William Halford, a United States researcher, who works at the Southern Illinois University as a professor and had injected patients with an experimental herpes vaccine.
According to a video filmed in the medical lab, Halford organized two groups of 10 participants at the private home in St Kitts and instructed them to draw their own blood for the trial.
Halford had proceeded with the trial of the experimental drug in St Kitts from April to August 2016 and had given the participants three shots of the vaccine over three months.
In August 2017, Prime Minister Harris’ Government had announced that it was starting an investigation into the matter which had to be conducted by the St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force.
The political opposition in the country, the St Kitts-Nevis Labour Party, has been against placing the investigation into the hands of police and has been suggesting that the investigation should be carried out jointly by the Immigration Department in the Ministry of National Security, Office of the Chief Medical Officer and the Customs Department in the Ministry of Finance to make it sure that the case is not swept under the carpet.
Although the government claimed that permission was not granted, Agustín Fernández III, the co-founder of Rational Vaccines, the company that oversaw the vaccine testing, said his partner, William Halford, told him that he had notified the St. Kitts government.
Halford, who has since died had said he manufactured the vaccine outside the United States.
“I don’t know how he [got] it there,” Fernández said in the email. He added that the doses were already in St. Kitts when he agreed to fund the trial.
Depending on how Halford transported the vaccine, he might have been required to seek approval from St. Kitts customs officials, said Dr. Patrick Martin, who was St. Kitts and Nevis’ chief medical officer until June 2016.
Martin, who had been in that position since 2004, said he never heard from Halford or any other member of the company, although he should have been notified.
The investigation is one of several promised by Prime Minister Harris. None has been made public.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
