Since March, epidemiologists and scientists of all stripes have been racing to find or develop a vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
Whatever you call it – coronavirus, COVID, The Pandemic, The Bat Kiss – this virus constitutes one of the most devastating threats to human life in recent memory, and with cases continuing to climb in countries like the US, Brazil and India, the need for a conclusive cure has never been stronger.
Here in Australia, we've been spared from the levels of social disruption and devastation observed in many other countries, but we're not out the woods just yet. Victoria has gone into a second lockdown, with NSW tipped to follow suit. Borders are still closed and things are still pretty grim.
The medical community's been working around the clock to find a vaccine for COVID-19, and we're finally starting to see some decent progress. Reports this morning detail how a leading vaccine candidate developed by Oxford University researchers has seen promising results, potentially paving the way for a full-blown COVID vaccine down the track.
Encouraging paper in The Lancet on the University of Oxford’s covid vaccines trial. Long way to go yet but this is an important development and good resulthttps://t.co/BPLlwCnaSG
— Sir Patrick Vallance (@uksciencechief) July 20, 2020
Called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, the vaccine is being co-developed by Oxford Vaccine Group, the Jenner Institute and British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. Human trials started in April, and the team published early results from their phase 1 and still-ongoing phase 2 trials earlier today in the widely-respected medical journal The Lancet.
More than 150 possible vaccines are in various stages of development, including high-profile efforts from American pharma giant Pfizer and China’s CanSino Biologics who also reported positive responses for their candidates on Monday, Reuters reports.
While China's trial has also produced good results, the British trial will be the first to progress to phase 3 trials, which are necessary in order to confirm whether the vaccine candidate effectively protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Phase 3 studies will entail randomized, controlled, multicenter trials on even large patient groups and are aimed at being the definitive assessment of how effective the vaccine is. Drugs need to go multiple successful phase 3 trials in order to get approval from regulatory agencies like the TGA in Australia or the FDA in the States.
Still, the fact that these vaccine candidates have progressed so quickly is good news for everyone. Normally it can take months or even years to develop vaccines. The clear and pressing need to combat The Pandemic has clearly motivated researchers (as well as the dollar factor: whoever develops the first effective vaccine stands to potentially make a lot of money).
Fingers crossed phase 3 goes well.
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The post New COVID Vaccine Study Sparks Immune Response With ‘Promise’ appeared first on DMARGE.
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