COVID-19: Oxford scientists aim to vaccinate 10,000 in UK, including elderly and children

In the advanced studies phase, British researchers testing the experimental vaccines proposed on May 21 that more than 10,000 UK citizens, including the elderly and the children, needed to be immunized to determine if the vaccine shot worked. Last week, scientists at Oxford University gave vaccine shot doses to more than 1,000 volunteers in the preliminary trial designed to test if the effects of the vaccine of health were benign, as per UK media reports. But on May 22, scientists announced that they now aim to vaccinate 10,260 people across Britain. 

Head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, Andrew Pollard said, 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.

The vaccine oxford created used a harmless virus — a chimpanzee cold virus that was engineered by scientists to make it contagious free so that it could carry the spike protein into the patient’s body. Further, a UK drugmaker AstraZeneca claimed it had secured its first agreements to produce 400 million doses of these Oxford-developed vaccines, which will be bolstered by a $1 billion investment from a US government agency. It added the delivery of the vaccines might commence in the fall, according to media reports.  

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Read: UK Announces £131 Million Funding To Accelerate Development Of A COVID-19 Vaccine

Race to find a vaccine

In the race to find the vaccine against the novel COVID-19 disease, on May 21, US immunotherapy company Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc said that its experimental vaccine to combat the COVID-19 disease produced protective antibodies and immune system responses in mice and guinea pigs. Director of the vaccine and immunotherapy center at the Wistar Institute said in a statement that the antibody responses gave exact results the researchers want to see in a coronavirus vaccine.  Not just the US, about a dozen experimental vaccines worldwide are in the early stages of human trials or poised to start, mostly in China and Europe in earlier stages of development, as per the reports.  

While the UK has over 250,908 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and has recorded 36,042 fatalities from the deadly disease, UK government is aiming to have at least 30 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine ready by September if the human trial phase at Oxford University proves to be successful, UK's Business Secretary Alok Sharma was quoted saying while speaking at a press conference.  

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(Image Credit: AP)