Oxford university scientists have confirmed that at least a million doses of a coronavirus vaccine should be ready by September 2020. The first sets of patients are expected to take part in the vaccine trials by next week. The vaccines will try to be made available even before trials can prove if they are effective or not. The experimental product has been called “chAdOx1 nCov-19” and is currently under development by biotech and research teams all over the world.
The vaccine will have over 500 volunteers to actively test on its solution. The Oxford university scientists have already gathered a representative sample of people between the ages of 18 to 55 for a trial of the vaccines potency. The vaccine is coming months ahead of the 12-18 months timeline which was predicted by experts. The vaccines are being produced in large scale production capacity which means they run the risk if being useless if not effective after being produced in large quantities.
Adrian Hill, Director of Jenner institute, University of Oxford said “The aim is to possess millions doses by September once we’ve results of our vaccine efficacy tests”. The team of Oxford university have already created a genetically engineered chimpanzee virus that will form the basis for the new vaccine, BBC reports. Three of the manufacturing partners were in India, China, Britain and two in Europe. The pandemic has claimed about 143,744 lives worldwide with about 2.14 million infected cases. The scientists behind the vaccine are seeking funding to help scale manufacturing.
Professor Hill also said that the team I trying to move faster as the world will need millions of doses of the vaccine to end the pandemic and lockdown. The vaccine was chosen amongst others as it can generation a strong immune response from just a single dose. The team also confirmed that if the vaccine becomes successful they will need to apply “emergency use approval” to come forward with the inoculation program. The vaccine will possibly show positive results in protection against Covid-19 and these scientists have the full backing of the government.
