The University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca have just revealed a very promising update regarding a vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic. According to these sources, a vaccine should be ready and be released around Christmas time.
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Still in trial stage
Kate Bingham, one of the researchers working on the project, said:
We’ve seen very positive data in the phase one and two clinical studies, which shows that people who have received the vaccine do elicit a strong immune response.
For the time being however, researchers are still working on the clinical trials, but hundreds of millions of doses have already been sold.
This particular vaccine is one of the few that has shown promising results. As a result, it could be marketed this year, even before the Christmas holidays. Tens of thousands of people from all over the world (China, United States, Russia) have volunteered to take part in clinical tests, and although these trials have proven that the vaccine does not provide 100% protection, it is still a success!
Vaccines will soon be ready, but…
People are still working hard to ensure that the first vaccinations can be released around Christmas, but not everyone will be able to benefit from them and it is believed that they will not be made available to the general public until the summer of 2021. This is because, obviously, when it comes out, there will be those who are a higher priority and emergency doses will be given to those who are considered vulnerable as well as healthcare workers.
The project leader Adrian Hill explained:
They will want to see more data on safety and maybe efficacy before they give a licence to vaccinate everybody. In this country, our priorities are pretty clear… we’re going to vaccinate high-risk individuals before we vaccinate the young, the fit and the healthy who are at lower risk. I think most countries will do that. So what we're looking for this year is an 'emergency use' authorisation that will allow us to go and vaccinate those most at risk as a priority, then early next year everybody else.
