Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine in final trial stage

As the world is grappling with rising numbers of novel coronavirus cases and deaths, University of Oxford and AstraZeneca’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine has entered the final stage of clinical trials, making it the first such vaccine. Also, scientists have started the clinical trials of the vaccine in South Africa.
Currently, the coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 95 lakh people across the world and over 4.8 lakh patients have died due to the highly contagious disease.

Scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand have started the first clinical trial in South Africa. The team will test the Ox1Cov-19 Vaccine, often known as the Oxford Vaccine, as part of the VIDA-Trial that aims to find a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2. Serum Institute of India (SII) has also invested $100 million to mass-produce one billion doses for India and other low-and-middle-income countries.

The vaccine is made from a virus called ChAdOx1 — a weakened and non-replicating version of a common cold virus (adenovirus). The vaccine has been produces in a way to contain the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in humans. It will be given to 10,260 adults and children in the next stage in United Kingdom.

“The clinical studies are progressing very well and we are now initiating studies to evaluate how well the vaccine induces immune responses in older adults, and to test whether it can provide protection in the wider population,” said Professor Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, in a statement on Wednesday, as reported by Hindustan Times.

If the trials are successful, reports say that Oxford Vaccine Group may launch the Covid-19 vaccine by the end of this year, making it the fastest Covid-19 vaccine since the outbreak.

Earlier, the Covid-19 vaccine was tested on monkeys in a small study and had shown some promising results on them.

Researchers involved with the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 trials said the vaccine had shown signs of priming the rhesus macaque monkeys’ immune systems to fend off the deadly virus and showed no indications of adverse effects.

Apart from Oxford’s vaccine, there are 12 other experimental vaccines in clinical trials and another 129 in the preclinical evaluation stage till 22 June, according to the World Health Organisation’s draft landscape of Covid-19 vaccines.

In terms of entering final stages of human trials, vaccines from US-based Moderna Inc. and China’s Sinovac Biotech are next in line. These vaccines will be ready for human trials by next month.

In India, four companies partnering to develop Covid-19 vaccine are in the preclinical trial stages to test their pharmacological effect and toxicity. Delhi-based Panacea Biotec is partnering with Refana Inc. in the US to develop an inactivated whole virus vaccine, Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech is working on three vaccine candidates, SII has three partnerships with Oxford-AstraZeneca, US-biotech firm Codagenix, and Austria’s Themis Bioscience and Zydus Cadila in Ahmedabad and India Immunologicals in Hyderabad have also formed partnerships for the vaccine’s development, HT report added.

In other news, on 23 June, the human trial of Imperial College London’s candidate began on the first healthy volunteer receiving a small dose of it.

It is a second such trial in the UK. The first candidate vaccine that went for the human trial was from Oxford University.

This week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, said he is cautiously optimistic there will be a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year or early 2021. WHO is drafting guidelines for the ethical distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

Meanwhile, India’s novel coronavirus cases on 25 June have climbed to 4,73,105 and the death toll rose to 14,894 today, according to the Union Health Ministry. However, a total of 2,71,696 patients have been cured so far while there are 1,86,514 active cases in the country.

In addition to that, World Health Organization’s Director General Tedros Adhanom expects coronavirus cases to hit 10 million next week and also told a news briefing he backed Saudi Arabia’s decision to ban pilgrims from abroad from attending the annual Haj pilgrimage to help limit the spread of the virus. – Livemint