UK researchers screening volunteers for upcoming coronavirus vaccine trial

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The vaccine set to be used in the upcoming clinical trial is already in production but will not be ready for a number of weeks
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David Child27 March 2020

Researchers in the UK have started screening healthy volunteers for an upcoming coronavirus vaccine trial.

University of Oxford scientists are recruiting people aged between 18 and 55 for the trial in the Thames Valley region.

It will see up to 510 volunteers receive either the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine or a control injection for comparison.

The vaccine is already in production but will not be ready for a number of weeks, with scientists working as quickly as possible to get it trial-ready.

It is hoped the trial will provide information on the safety aspects of the vaccine itself, as well as its ability to generate an immune response against the virus.

Professor Andrew Pollard, Chief Investigator on the study, said starting the clinical trial would be the "first step" towards finding out if the ​vaccine - developed at Oxford’s Jenner Institute - could "safely play a central role in controlling the pandemic coronavirus that is sweeping the globe".

More than 550,000 cases of coronavirus have been recorded globally, according to data collated by Johns Hopkins University, with the pandemic affecting every continent besides Antarctica​. In excess of 25,000 people have died as a result of the outbreak.

Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute, compared responding to the pandemic with the deadly Ebola outbreak which surged through West Africa in 2014, saying developing a rapid vaccine response for Covid-19 posed an "even greater challenge".

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"Vaccines are being designed from scratch and progressed at an unprecedented rate," he said.

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

At the same time as conducting further preclinical investigations, production of the vaccine is also being scaled up ready for larger trials, and potentially, future deployment as soon as possible.

Dr Sandy Douglas, who is leading on the vaccine manufacturing scale-up project, said: "The scale of this epidemic poses a huge challenge for vaccine manufacturing.

"We need to follow rigorous safety standards and that takes time.

"By starting work on large-scale manufacturing immediately, we hope to accelerate the availability of a high-quality, safe vaccine."

The particular vaccine being tested was chosen because it can generate a strong immune response from one dose and it is not a replicating virus, so it cannot cause an ongoing infection in the vaccinated individual.

This also makes it safer to give to children, the elderly and anyone with a pre-existing medical condition such as diabetes.

People interested in volunteering can find more information on the Covid-19 vaccine website.

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