Oxford vaccine against Covid-19 in final stages of trial

NEW DELHI: Oxford University and AstraZeneca Plc.’s experimental drug becomes the first ever vaccine to enter the final stage of clinical trials to determine how efficient it is to treat people from coronavirus that has so far affected more than 9 million people globally.

In the next stage of trial in UK, the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine, which has been licensed to AstraZeneca, will be administered to 10,260 adults and children. The vaccine is now under trial in South Africa and Brazil, with Serum Institute of India (SII) investing $100 million to mass-produce one billion doses for India and other low-and-middle-income countries.

The vaccine is made from ChAdOx1 virus, a weakened version of the common cold virus (adenovirus) that triggers infections in chimpanzees. The virus has been genetically changed to protect humans from the infection.

Professor Andrew Pollard, Head, Oxford Vaccine Group, said that the clinical studies are progressing very well, and they are now beginning studies to assess how well the vaccine induces immune responses in older adults and to test whether it can provide protection in a wider population.

According to WHO, there are 13 experimental vaccines in clinical trials and another 129 in the preclinical evaluation stage as of June 22.