Oxford researchers aim for million potential COVID-19 vaccines by September

Published : Apr 19, 2020, 2:11 PM IST

Updated : Apr 19, 2020, 7:35 PM IST

A million doses of 'ChAdOx1' are already being manufactured, even before the clinical trial phase is stated to begin. The team at Oxford will enrol healthy volunteers aged between 18–55, who, if pass screening, will be the first humans to test the new vaccine.

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London: Researchers at Oxford University said that a million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine will be available by September this year, even before trials prove whether the shot is effective, a media report said.

According to a media report, Prof Sarah Gilbert, the lead researcher of the vaccine development program, said that she and her team were confident that the vaccine, called 'ChAdOx1 COVID-19', can work against the coronavirus.

A million doses of 'ChAdOx1' are already being manufactured, even before the clinical trial phase is stated to begin.

Earlier, the University of Oxford is looking for over 500 healthy volunteers to test if their vaccine can prevent the novel coronavirus.

The team at Oxford will enroll healthy volunteers aged between 18–55, who, if pass screening, will be the first humans to test the new vaccine, the university said in a statement on Friday.

The trial, a collaboration between the university's Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group clinical teams, will recruit up to 510 volunteers, who will receive either the 'ChAdOx1 nCoV-19' vaccine or a control injection for comparison.

The trial will provide valuable information on the safety aspects of the vaccine, as well as its ability to generate an immune response against the virus.

The trial has been approved by UK regulators and ethical reviewers. Researchers are working as quickly as possible to get the vaccine ready to be used in the trial, which includes further preclinical investigations and the production of a larger number of doses of the vaccine.

Interested individuals can volunteer to participate on the COVID-19 vaccine website, University of Oxford said.

While the team will start screening people now to see if they are eligible to take part in the study, participants will not receive the vaccine for some weeks.

Detailed preclinical work is being done and the vaccine is being manufactured to clinical-grade standard at the Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility at Oxford University.

"The Oxford team had the exceptional experience of rapid vaccine response, such as to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. This is an even greater challenge. Vaccines are being designed from scratch and progressed at an unprecedented rate," said Professor Adrian Hill, Director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford.

"The upcoming trial will be critical for assessing the feasibility of vaccination against COVID-19 and could lead to early deployment," Hill said.

However, WHO said that a possible coronavirus vaccine was 1.5 years away at the minimum.