Coronavirus: Oxford University to Begin Human Trials of COVID-19 Vaccine Next Week

Oxford University scientists are expected to launch human trials of a new coronavirus vaccine next week.

Researchers suggested that the Jab could be able to be carried out for emergency use by the fall after substantial success in the early stages of production.

The Oxford team also extensively tested the vaccine on many animal species.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported that more than 70 vaccines are being produced worldwide for COVID-19, which has affected more than two million people and killed 128,886 people worldwide.

Nonetheless, analysts cautioned that it could take at least 18 months to completely create a vaccine that could be made accessible to millions of citizens.

The Oxford team follows three other classes of scholars – two in the United States and one in China – in the launch of human studies.

Professor Sarah Gilbert, a vaccinologist at Oxford, has said she is “80 percent” confident it will be a success.

There is now hope that the jab, developed by the clinical teams at the Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group, could be ready from as early as September.

“We’re a university, we have a very small in a house manufacturing facility that can do dozens of doses. That’s not good enough to supply the world, obviously,” he told the BBC World Service.

“We are working with manufacturing organizations and paying them to start the process now.

“So by the time July, August, September comes – whenever this is looking good – we should have the vaccine to start deploying under emergency use recommendations.

“That’s a different approval process to commercial supply, which often takes many more years.

“There is no point in making a vaccine that you can’t scale up and may only get 100,000 doses for after a huge amount of investment.

“You need a technology that allows you to make not millions but ideally billions of doses over a year.”

The UK’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has said it would be “very lucky” if a coronavirus vaccine was widely available within a year.

Sir Patrick told,” A vaccine that can be used generally – we’d be very lucky to get one within a year.”

Source: independent.co.uk