Oxford University's coronavirus vaccine tests on animals have shown promise and have been deemed successful. In the next stage, they will be conducting trials on humans beginning next week with hopes the coronavirus vaccine it would be ready by autumn. 510 people will be participating in the trial's first stage.
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Oxford University to start coronavirus vaccine human trials next week
Hopes of finally eliminating the coronavirus were lifted this week as experts revealed that vaccine trials will begin next week. According to the Oxford University scientists at the helm, they are confident that they can get the vaccine for COVID-19 distributed to millions of people in autumn.
After a successful animal trial stage, the next step to make sure it is safe is to proceed to human trials. The team is currently one among hundreds around the world trying to develop a COVID-19 vaccine which medical experts earlier predicted would take at least 18 months.
According to Tech Times, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that there are currently more than 70 vaccines in development, while three have already begun human trials. Of these three, one is in China and two are in the United States.
Oxford University's vaccine program has already successfully recruited at least 510 people between the ages of 18 to 55 for the first trial. They will likely receive either the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine, which has already been developed in Oxford, or a control injection.
The coronavirus vaccine will come from chimpanzees injected with the virus
Lead researcher, Adrian Hill has said, "We are going into human trials next week. We have tested the vaccine in several different animal species. We have taken a fairly cautious approach, but a rapid one to assess the vaccine that we are developing."
The team's vaccine will come from chimpanzees that are injected with the coronavirus to try and produce anti-bodies that can potentially be useful to bolster and aid the immune system of humans. This vaccine, which is developed by the Jenner Institute and Oxford vaccine Group clinical teams, should be ready by September.
Hill has given a statement to BBC World Service saying that they have been trying to raise money to speed up the manufacturing process. "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. We are working with manufacturing organizations and paying them to start the process now."
He continued saying that "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."
