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Coronavirus vaccine trial could be delayed by fall in UK infection rate, Oxford scientist says

‘This is all very unpredictable, obviously,’ says lead vaccine researcher

Kate Ng
Friday 24 April 2020 15:46 BST
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Social distancing could last for at least another year unless vaccine found, chief medical officer suggests

The leader of the University of Oxford’s coronavirus vaccine development team has said the trials may face some issues because the prevalence of the infection has fallen in the UK.

Professor Sarah Gilbert’s comments came after the first participants in the much-anticipated coronavirus vaccine trial were injected on Thursday. One participant was given a dose of the vaccine, while the other was given a meningitis vaccine for comparison.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Prof Gilbert said the team was looking to recruit hospital workers “who will be at greater risk of infection” in order to increase the chances of gauging the vaccine’s efficacy.

She said they were “not convinced” that Covid-19 is still prevalent enough in the UK for the trial to produce results as quickly as they would like.

“We’ve been accelerating the trial as much as we possibly can and we’re looking to, for the next phase of the trial, specifically recruit people who work in hospitals who will be at greater risk of infection, because while there are still cases in hospital, that’s where the virus is,” she said.

“We’re going to try and increase our chances of getting the vaccine efficacy result by doing that. But we accept that we may not be able to do that in this country, so we’re also making plans to set up trials in other countries where the transmission of the virus has been a bit slower to get going because we may need to go and test the vaccine somewhere else.”

Researchers need to test the actual vaccine against a placebo in large enough groups of people in order to determine its effectiveness. They are testing for three things: the vaccine’s safety, its ability to induce immune responses, and its efficacy in stopping people from contracting the coronavirus.

According to Prof Gilbert, the team are aiming to have at least 5,000 people take part in the trials.

However, the fall in the rate of infections could delay the production of the vaccine. The Oxford team had hopes of at least a million doses of its candidate being ready in September.

“It could still happen over the summer and maybe we will get a signal of efficacy, a trend towards efficacy, a hint that it’s working here, and then be able to add to that by doing trials in other countries.”

“This is all very unpredictable, obviously,” she added.

The UK’s coronavirus lockdown could also hamper the process of gathering data because volunteers will not be deliberately exposed to the virus but will instead wait until they come across it in the community, said the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group.

Professor Andrew Pollard told BBC1's Breakfast show: “Of course there isn’t very much virus around in the community at the moment – the lockdown has had a big impact on transmission.

“So it is difficult to predict exactly when they will meet the virus and it may become months before that happens ... At this moment we don’t have a treatment for coronavirus so we would have to do this extremely carefully.”

On Thursday, Prof Gilbert said she was “very optimistic” that the vaccine developed by her team will be successful, but she added that there was “absolutely no suggestion” the vaccine would become available to the general population before its efficacy was determined.

The Oxford Vaccine Group hopes to repeat the testing process with six more volunteers on Saturday, and will move to larger numbers on Monday.

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