Question
Have vaccine trials included black and brown men and women living with HIV? Or do the findings just relate to the experiences of HIV positive white gay men?
22 December 2020. Related: All topics, COVID-19.
Answer
Unfortunately, most vaccine studies only included very small numbers of people living with HIV. So far, the ethnicity breakdown of the HIV positive group has not been presented. All the HIV positive participants might be black and brown women.
For example, the Pfizer study with more than 44,000 people only included about 120 people living with HIV. The results did not show that HIV as any impact on how the vaccines work. Data though are currently limited.
However, there is a lot more data about ethnicity.
About 10% of the people in the US sites for the Pfizer vaccine were black or African American. There were no differences in how well the vaccine worked or in side effects compared to the rest of the study population.
In the Oxford vaccine studies about 90% and 65% of participants were white in the UK and Brazil sites respectively. Although there were very few black participants in the UK sites this was around 10% in Brazil.
This short video is from Nigerian GPs working in the UK who have all had COVID-19 vaccines. Nigerian GP video.
Please note this video is included as an information resource. It is not directly liked to HIV and i-Base was not involved in producing it.
This is one of more than 65 questions about COVID vaccines. It was produced by and for people living with HIV.
Q&A on COVID vaccines: are they safe and effective?
https://i-base.info/qa/16330
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