Human Trial of New Coronavirus Vaccine Begins in the UK

By Staff, Agencies

A group of volunteers in the United Kingdom started being immunized with a new coronavirus vaccine.

About 300 people will have the vaccine over the coming weeks, as part of a trial led by Prof Robin Shattock and his colleagues, at Imperial College London.

Tests in animals suggest the vaccine is safe and triggers an effective immune response.

Experts at Oxford University have already started human trials.

The trials are among many across the world - there are around 120 vaccine programs under way.

After this first phase, another trial is being planned for October, involving 6,000 people.

The Imperial team hopes the vaccine could be distributed in the UK and overseas from early 2021.

Meanwhile the Duke of Cambridge met volunteers taking part in Oxford University's trial, at the city's Churchill Hospital.

Many traditional vaccines are based on a weakened or modified form of virus, or parts of it, but the Imperial vaccine is based on a new approach, using synthetic strands of genetic code, called RNA, which mimic the virus.

Once injected into muscle, the RNA self-amplifies - generating copies of itself - and instructs the body's own cells to make copies of a spike protein found on the outside of the virus.

This should train the immune system to recognize and fight coronavirus without having to develop Covid-19.