Uk begins first human COVID-19 vaccine trial in Oxford.

European first human trial of a COVID-19 vaccine has started in Oxford.

Out of 800 individuals recruited for the study, only 2 volunteers were injected the new vaccine.

In the photo above, Elisa Granato is a scientist and was the first person to be injected with the vaccine. She revealed that she volunteered because she wanted to support the scientific process.

Well, half of all they individuals who volunteered will be given the Coronavirus vaccine, and the other half, a control vaccine which protects against meningitis but not coronavirus.

However, the design of the trial means volunteers will not know which vaccine they are getting, though doctors in charge will.

The vaccine was developed by a team at Oxford University in under three months.

The professor of vaccinology at the Jenner Institute, Sarah Gilbert, led the pre-clinical research.

“Personally I have a high degree of confidence in this vaccine,” she said.

“Of course, we have to test it and get data from humans. We have to demonstrate it actually works and stops people getting infected with coronavirus before using the vaccine in the wider population,” she added.

As stated by BBC, the COVID-19 vaccine is made from a weakened version of a common cold virus (known as an adenovirus) from chimpanzees that has been modified so it cannot grow in humans.

Meanwhile, the Oxford team has already developed a vaccine against Mers, another type of coronavirus, using the same approach – and that had several rosy results in clinical trials.

Furthermore, the only way the Oxford team will know if the coronavirus vaccine will work is by collating the number of people who get infected with coronavirus in the coming months from the two different trial.

Buh that could be a problem if cases fall rapidly in the UK, because there may not be enough data.

However, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, Prof Andrew Pollard, who is supervising the trial, stated: 

“We’re chasing the end of this current epidemic wave. If we don’t catch that, we won’t be able to tell whether the vaccine works in the next few months. But we do expect that there will be more cases in the future because this virus hasn’t gone away.”

Thus, the vaccine researchers are prioritising the recruitment of local healthcare workers into the trial as they are more likely than others to be exposed to the virus.

And larger trial with no age limit of about 5,000 volunteers, will start in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the Oxford team is also in view of a vaccine trial in Africa, peradventure in Kenya, where the amounts of transmission are growing from a lower base.

Well, the trial volunteers will be carefully monitored in the coming months. They have been told that some may get a sore arm, headaches or fevers in the first couple of days after vaccination.

Meanwhile, they are also told there is a theoretical risk that the vaccine could induce a serious reaction to coronavirus, which arose in some early Sars animal vaccine studies.

But the Oxford team says its data suggests the risk of the vaccine producing an enhanced disease is minimal.

In addition, another team at Imperial College London hopes to start human trials of its coronavirus vaccine in June.

The Oxford and Imperial teams be given more than £40m of government funding.