Coronavirus Australia: Vaccine expected in first half of 2021

An infectious disease expert co-ordinating trials of coronavirus vaccines is confident at least one will be available in the first half of 2021.

An infectious disease expert leading testing of an Australian virus vaccine is confident there will be an immunisation available in the first half of next year.

“Obviously we still need to go through all the phases of clinical trials, and we’ve just embarked on phase two, but I’m very optimistic,” Dr Paul Griffin told Sunrise on Thursday morning.

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An expert has said a vaccine should be available by 2021. Picture: Russian Direct Investment Fund/AFP

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Dr Griffin said he thinks there will be a few vaccines available in 2021 and at least one that is moderately effective at immunising people against coronavirus.

He’s working with researchers at the University of Queensland, where he’s also an associate professor of medicine, on the trial of its vaccine.

Dr Paul Griffin has been working on a number of vaccine trials. Picture: Channel 9

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The Federal and Queensland governments have tipped $5 million and $10 million into that research respectively, while Shadow Health Minister Chris Bowen worried on Tuesday that the country wasn’t spending enough on potential vaccines.

Dr Griffin also worked on the clinical trial for a potential vaccine from American company Novavax, which administered the vaccine or a placebo to 130 volunteers in Melbourne and Brisbane.

There’s likely to be several vaccines available and at least one should work, Dr Griffin has said. Picture: Valerie Macon/AFP

The vaccine was not only safe but also found to create a strong immune response against COVID-19.

That vaccine is planned to go into a larger third phase of trials next month, with hopes to begin mass manufacture of it next year.

On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his government had already developed an effective vaccine. However experts around the world have cast serious doubt over it, with US director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr Anthony Fauci saying having a vaccine and proving it was safe and effective were two different things.

“I hope that the Russians have actually, definitively proven that the vaccine is safe and effective. I seriously doubt that they’ve done that,” he told ABC News.

And Dr Roger Lord, medical sciences lecturer at The Australian Catholic University, said: “Russia’s move to large scale manufacture before phase 3 trials have been completed has been described as reckless and unethical and may represent a mixture of anxiety and desperation to control an increasing number of cases and deaths caused by SARS-CoV-2.”