Experimental Coronavirus vaccine being given to immunize hundreds in UK; 'hold breath & wait'

Scientists at Imperial College London say y are immunizing hundreds of people with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an early trial after seeing worrying safety problems in a small number vaccinated so far. Dr Robin Shattock, a professor at college, told Associated Press that he and colleagues h just finished a very slow and arduous process of testing vaccine at a low dose in initial participants and would w expand trial to about 300 people, including some over 75.

"It's well tolerated. re aren't any side effects," he said, ding it was still very early in study.

Shattock, who is leing vaccine research at Imperial, said he hopes to have eugh safety data to start iculating several thousand people in October. Since COVID-19 infections have dropped dramatically in Britain, making it difficult to determine wher or t vaccine works, Shattock said he and his colleagues are also looking to test ir vaccine elsewhere.

"We're looking very carefully at pandemic, at numbers where hot spots are and talking to collaborators that have facilities to do se kinds of studies," he said.

Imperial vaccine uses syntic strands of genetic code based on virus. Once injected into a muscle, body's own cells are instructed to make copies of a spiky protein on coronavirus. That should in turn trigger an immune response so body can fight off any future COVID-19 infection.

Earlier this week, world's biggest coronavirus vaccine study started in United States, with first of 30,000 planned volunteers getting immunized with shots created by US National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. Several or vaccines me by China and by Britain's Oxford University, based on different vaccine techlogies, began smaller final-st tests in Brazil and or hard-hit countries earlier this month.

World Health Organization has said multiple vaccine approaches are necessary for COVID-19, ting that usual success rate for vaccine development is about 10 per cent. Shattock said re were numerous coronavirus vaccines w in clinical trials, and he predicted that at least some of m would prove to be effective.

"We have 20 vaccines in clinical trials, (so) we can be pretty confident that at least two of those will work," he said. "It really depends on how strong immune response needs to be to provide protection." Shattock said he was optimistic Imperial vaccine would work, but must await scientific data from trial.

"I'm just going to hold my breath and wait to see," he said.