The preliminary results from the Oxford, coronavirus vaccine trial raises hopes, experimental coronavirus vaccine could address the spread of coronavirus, a pandemic, which has so far infected at least 14.9 million people globally, and more than 615, 000 who have died from the virus. The vaccine trial results show that the experimental version is safe and it triggers a strong immune response in the people who volunteered during the trial. Scientists and governments have said the Oxford vaccine results could be a 'major breakthrough' in the fight against COVID-19.
Speaking at a webinar organised by the Science Media Centre, Prof Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research at Oxford University, said the early success of the Oxford vaccine was good news for other teams trying to develop a COVID-19 vaccine around the world; there are at least 23 vaccines in development. If the Oxford vaccine works, it is much more likely that another adenoviral vaccine has a good chance of working as well. Any immunity to COVID-19 provided by the vaccine would not only be short-term. Prof Hill explained that making the assumption that if the natural infection does not give you immunity for very long, therefore a vaccine will not give you immunity for very long - that does not follow.
At the webinar, Prof Andrew Pollard, of the Oxford Vaccine Group, said it was impossible to say yet how many shots of the vaccine each age group would need to administer to gain and then maintain levels of coronavirus immunity. Prof Pollard said the team has seen encouraging response with one dose. Nevertheless, in the small subgroup seen in the Lancet paper, there are better responses with two doses. The human population is completely naive to the virus and so a quite heavy lift is required to get a good immune response from the vaccine, which is what the team is trying to achieve with the two-dose schedule.
In a study involving more than 1,000 healthy volunteers – half of which had the vaccine while the other half were given a meningitis vaccine. The effect of the vaccine was measured by the number of antibodies and T-cells it generates in the blood of the volunteers – not in any response to the virus itself. Prof Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University, who led the pre-clinical research, told the webinar why scientists were trying to stimulate both antibodies and a T-cell response through a COVID-19 vaccine.
According to Prof Sarah Gilbert, the antibodies are in fluids in the body and they can encounter viruses when they first come into the body. Antibodies can bind on to the outside of the virus stopping them from infecting cells; this is known as neutralising the antibodies. It sees the virus, attaches to it as soon as it comes into the body and stops it from causing any infection. The T-cells can recognise which cells have the virus inside them and destroy them to prevent further spread of the virus in the body. The two systems complementary work together, that is, stopping infection coming in, and if the virus gets past the antibodies, the T-cells destroy the cells that the virus has taken over.
The UK government termed the results “very positive news”, adding there is a need to further trials for good guarantee. According to the UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, the government has already ordered 100 million doses of this vaccine, should it succeed. Large-scale trials have begun in South Africa and Brazil, however, where infection rates are still high and it will be possible to assess whether vaccinated individuals are less likely to get COVID-19 than others are.
Published on 21 July 2020, 1630 EAT
Ruzeki is a blogger at SHADOW WOKA NEWS, specializing in politics, internet culture and propaganda, as well as writing about climate change and other things, which are science-related.
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