By Covid-19 vaccine ‘appears safe’
A team of scientists at Oxford University have taken a huge step towards the discovery of a safe, effective and accessible vaccine against Covid-19.
The vaccine, developed by researchers and scientists at the University of Oxford appears safe, the BBC have announced.
The UK has already ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine.
The vaccine is made from a genetically engineered virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees.
It has been heavily modified, so it cannot cause infections in people.
Scientists have transferred the genetic instructions for the tool which coronavirus’s uses to invade our cells to the vaccine they were developing.
As such, the vaccine resembles the coronavirus and the immune system can learn how to attack it.
Trials, which took place earlier in the pandemic, involved 1,077 people.
The results showed that the injection led to the production of antibodies and white blood cells that can fight coronavirus.
Despite promising findings, scientists say that it is still too soon to know if this is enough to offer protection.
Experts have declared that while the vaccine is safe, there are side-effects.
70% of people on the trial developed either fever or headache, but researchers say this is easily managed with paracetamol.
Prof Sarah Gilbert, form the University of Oxford, UK, said:
“There is still much work to be done before we can confirm if our vaccine will help manage the COVID-19 pandemic, but these early results hold promise.”
Prof Andrew Pollard added:
“We saw the strongest immune response in the 10 participants who received two doses of the vaccine, indicating that this might be a good strategy for vaccination,”
Larger trials to determine the vaccines effectiveness under particular conditions are currently under way at Oxford University.
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