Oxford University Begins Human Trial of COVID-19 Vaccine

Oxford University is launching a human trial of apotential coronavirus vaccine, with the daunting aim of making a successful jabavailable to the public later this year.

The United Nations described that more than 100research projects around the world have been made to find a vaccine as the onlyroute back to "normality" and seven are currently in clinical trials,according to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Such trials are already underway in China and theUnited States and are due to begin at the end of this month in Germany, wherethe federal vaccine authority gave the green light on Wednesday.

Oxford University's work has been strongly supported by the British government, and the first human trials have been started on Thursday.

The UN health ministry said that the "promisingdevelopment", pointing out that it would normally take "years"to reach such a stage of vaccine development.

In its first phase, half of 1,112 volunteers willreceive the potential vaccine against COVID-19, the other half a controlvaccine to test its safety and efficacy.

The volunteers are aged between 18 and 55, are in good health, have not tested positive for COVID-19, and are not pregnant or breastfeeding.

Ten participants will receive two doses of theexperimental vaccine, four weeks apart, according to reports.

Professor Sarah Gilbert's team hopes for an 80 percent success rate and plans to produce one million doses by September, with the aim of making it widely available by the autumn if successful.

But the teams carrying out this research say ontheir website that this timetable is "highly ambitious" and couldchange.

The Oxford vaccine is based on a chimpanzeeadenovirus, which is modified to produce proteins in human cells that are alsoproduced by COVID-19.

It is hoped the vaccine will teach the body's immunesystem to then recognize the protein and help stop the coronavirus fromentering human cells.

The adenovirus vaccine is known to develop a strong immune response with a single dose and is not a replicating virus, so it cannot cause infection, making it safer for children, the elderly, and patients with underlying diseases such as diabetes.