A dental nurse put herself forward to be the first person in the world to test a new vaccine against the Ebola virus.
Caroline Heath, from Reading, Berkshire, opted for the jab after it was developed by Oxford University last year.
She admits she would not have taken part in the trial if it was not for Covid-19, reports the Mailonline.
The jab is designed to tackle two strains of the virus – the Zaire and also the Sudan type.
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Volunteers needed
The dental nurse came face to face with the opportunity at Henley Literary Festival, which took place last October. Caroline was listening to speaker Dame Sarah Gilbert, a name behind the Oxford Astrazeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
Sarah explained that before the pandemic hit, she had been working on developing an Ebola vaccine – and that they now needed volunteers.
After the talk, Caroline got in touch with trial organisers and it grew from there.
Current crisis
This comes as the British Association of Dental Nurses (BADN) introduces a menopause policy to support staff experiencing symptoms in the workplace.
The document helps employers to retain dental nurses in the face of the current crisis.
In a new study published in the British Dental Journal (BDJ), 76.9% of the dental team are currently women. The researchers carried out the study after noticing that there was ‘no literature on the effects that menopause can have on members of the dental team’.
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