Government statement on vaccine certification and clinical trial participation
Issued 28 May 2021
Clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccinations are critical for responding to COVID-19. They are a global public health good. Those who are taking part in them are creating great benefit for the rest of the world.
Being in a COVID-19 vaccine trial, in either active or placebo arm, should not disadvantage you, and the Government intend to take any action available to ensure that this is the case.
The Government will ensure that information on those in clinical trials vaccine is linked to mechanisms to demonstrate your vaccine status to ensure that anyone on a vaccine clinical trial can prove they are in a clinical trial and therefore should be treated as vaccinated.
The Government position is that a vaccine should not be a requirement for travel at this time. This is aligned to the current WHO approach to international travel. Discussions are ongoing with other countries, including through groups such as the G7, the EU Commission, and the WHO to shape the approach taken around the world to sharing health status for travel, including vaccination status. As a global public health good, the UK Government will make the case that anyone on a COVID-19 vaccine trial should be treated the same in terms of certification as someone who has received a deployed vaccine.
We appreciate that even for participants not currently planning to travel, qualifying for vaccine certification is important and we do not want any trial participants to be disadvantaged, nor to feel disadvantaged. Everyone is committed to getting this issue sorted out as quickly as possible and NIHR will provide a further update in the week beginning 7 June. The latest information including updated FAQs is available on the Be Part of Research website https://bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk/Vaccine-studies/Latest-vaccine-news/index.
