The University of Oxford’s possible COVID-19 vaccine could be rolled out by the end of the year, but there is no certainty, the lead developer of the vaccine said yesterday.
The experimental vaccine, which has been licensed to AstraZeneca, increased levels of both protective neutralizing antibodies and immune T-cells that target the virus, said the study, published on Monday in The Lancet medical journal.
“The end of the year target for getting vaccine rollout, it’s a possibility, but there’s absolutely no certainty about that because we need three things to happen,” Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the university, told BBC Radio.
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She said it needed to be shown to work in late-stage trials, there needed to be large quantities manufactured and regulators had to agree quickly to license it for emergency use before large numbers of people could be vaccinated.
England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and his deputy, Jonathan Van-Tam, took differing views on the potential timeline.
“The chance of us getting a vaccine before Christmas that actually is highly effective are, in my view, very low,” Whitty told lawmakers.
Van-Tam, however, said he was “cautiously optimistic that we will have some vaccine this side of Christmas.”
The Oxford scientists had eyed 1 million doses of the potential vaccine to be produced by September.
Although the deal with AstraZeneca has provided manufacturing capacity to do that, the lower prevalence of the novel coronavirus in Britain has complicated the process of proving its efficacy.
Late-stage trials crucial for providing data are under way in Brazil and South Africa, and are also due to start in the US.
The Lancet publication came just an hour after Pfizer and BioNtech had announced early positive data from their COVID-19 vaccine trial in Germany, which builds upon promising results from their program earlier this month.
Other vaccine projects — including shots being developed by China’s CanSino Biologics Inc (康希諾生物) and a partnership of Pfizer and BioNTech SE — also delivered positive trial updates on Monday.
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