Staff Reporter: A Bangladeshi doctor working in a hospital in the United States has taken part in the Pfizer’s Phase III trial of Titas Mahmud. Titas Mahmud is the son of famous playwright Professor Mumtaz Uddin Ahmed. He is working as a doctor in a hospital in the state of Ohio in the United States. Titas wrote on Facebook on Friday (September 11) that since the beginning of the Corona epidemic, everyone has been calling us “front line heroes” with great respect. Personally, I have never really been happy about this pouring. But today I feel quite lucky to be a subject of Pfizer’s Phase Three Trial for the discovery of the corona vaccine.
Titas Mahmud said, ‘The hospital I work in is a research hospital. About thirty thousand people work here. An email was sent to all of us stating that the Pfizer Research Center would recruit 500 volunteers. Also given on the website. I started taking the next findings on my own initiative. I called their chief and told him that I was interested in taking part. They started talking to me initially.
Titas Mahmud said, “They first talk to me on the phone and take my personal information, whether I have any disease, whether I take any kind of medicine.” They are not very important, because they want all kinds of patients to be in the phase-three trial. This is being done between the ages of 18 to 62 years. They then emailed me a 26/28 page conditional statement stating that I had voluntarily agreed to take part in it voluntarily. Then they had to sit face to face with the Principal Investigator. He asked me if I had any questions about any of the terms of the terms of reference, and he answered all the questions I asked. Then my blood pressure was checked. Then my covid test was done. Then I asked if I could take part in the trial if it was positive, then they told me that there is no relation between positive and negative. All this data will be stored in one place down the code. Whenever I became their subject, I was no longer a person to them, the code. Then I took 25 mg of blood for antibody test. That will also be useful for data. This test is to understand at what stage of the antibody my trial is starting. Then I was given an injection. And that’s how I get involved.
“I have another visit on October 3 in the next three weeks,” he said. For two years they will keep me on follow-up and have six visits with them. In the meantime, he has added an app to my mobile. Every week there I have to inform them of my condition, answer some basic questions. Through this they will understand how their subject is.
“I’m actually connected from the place of my own helplessness,” he added. Covid could do nothing for the patients. I just turned my head helplessly and said – it will be better. From that place of helplessness it seemed as if we could help science through it.
Titas Mahmud has two sons. I didn’t say anything in advance, thinking that family members would be worried. But when I took part in the trial I told them they did not discourage it in any way. My mother, wife all took it very sportily.
Titas Mahmud said, “These 26/28 page conditions are actually to ensure my safety and to inform them about what to do.” As well as saying that I am voluntarily joining the trial, I can withdraw myself from the research at any level if I want to at any time, it will not affect any of my work. It is said that the vaccine is synthetic, made in the lab, so there will be no corona from here. But it is not known how it will react if infected, it can cause damage and even death. All my information will be kept secret. However, if for any other reason my own doctor wants to know my physical condition, I will be immediately released from the research and my information will be given to the doctor. If the subject ever feels that he is not being treated fairly, he can take recourse to the law. And in the case of women, of course, within six months of the start of the trial can not be pregnant in any way, men can not donate their sperm anywhere.
BP/SM
