Are you all giddy with excitement? We for one, cannot wait until a proper, successful vaccine begins to distribute across the world. It won’t be an easy journey though.
Some light has shined on Oxford University’s Coronavirus vaccine trial, as it reportedly appears safe and triggers an immune response.
Trials involving 1,077 people showed the injection led to them making antibodies and T-cells that can fight coronavirus. However, it’s too soon to tell if it will be successful. The trials are promising, but larger trials need to be applied in order to fully assess the effectiveness of the vaccine.
It’s a good start, the most promising so far out of all the global trials.
The vaccine also has a name; ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, a bit of a mouthful if you ask us.
The vaccine is made from a genetically engineered virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees. It has been heavily modified, so it wouldn’t cause infections in people and also to make it appear more like Coronavirus. Scientists did this by transferring the genetic instructions for the coronavirus’s “spike protein” to the vaccine they were developing.
To put it simply, the virus now resembles Coronavirus and the immune system can learn to attack it.
There were no dangerous side-effects from taking the vaccine, but 70% of people on the trial developed either fever or headache.
Whats next?
The study cannot show whether the vaccine can either prevent people from becoming ill or even lessen their symptoms of Covid-19. More than 10,000 people will take part in the next stage of the trials in the UK and the trial has been expanded to other countries with higher Coronavirus infection rates.
Here’s to hoping this is the start of an effective vaccine trial.
