LONDON: University of Oxford researchers working on a vaccine to protect against coronavirus on Friday confirmed that they are moving to the next level as they begin recruiting over 10,000 people for the second phase of human trials.
The first phase of the trial began last month with 1,000 healthy adults aged 55 and under as volunteers. Now more than 10,200 people, including over 70s and five to 12-year-olds, will be enrolled in the study, to see the effects on their immune system.
A recent study had found that the vaccine, named ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, had shown some promising results in a small study with monkeys.
The COVID-19 vaccine trial team have been working hard on assessing the safety and immunogenicity of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, and preparing to assess vaccine efficacy, said Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the university’s Jenner Institute who is leading the research.
We have had a lot of interest already from people over the age of 55 years who were not eligible to take part in the phase I study, and we will now be able to include older age groups to continue the vaccine assessment. We will also be including more study sites, in different parts of the country, she said.
ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is made from a virus (ChAdOx1), which is a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees, that has been genetically changed so that it is impossible for it to replicate in humans.
For the latest set of volunteers, researchers will be assessing the immune response to the vaccine in people of different ages, to find out if there is variation in how well the immune system responds in older people or children. (PTI)