Coronavirus: UK pushes for vaccine by year end

A milestone British vaccine will go to stage three trials after patients showed a strong immune response.

Prince William meets scientists, including Christina Dold (right), during a visit to the manufacturing laboratory where a vaccine against COVID-19 has been produced at the Oxford Vaccine Group's facility at the Churchill Hospita. Picture: Getty Images.

British scientists have been buoyed by two significant developments in their battle against COVID-19: a promising vaccine that will go to stage three trials after patients showed a strong immune response, and a potential new treatment to help those suffering moderate to severe symptoms.

The Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine trial has released promising results and will quickly move into a big stage three trial, but will have to go overseas for patients because declining levels of the virus in the United Kingdom have hindered further research.

On Monday the university revealed that initial trials of its vaccine in 1077 mainly white British adults aged up to 55 found the vaccine produced both strong antibody and t-cell responses.

While 70 per cent of those injected suffered mild to moderate fever, chills, malaise and headaches, the vaccine was considered safe and tolerable and paracetamol helped reduce side effects.

Results from this trial also indicated that it might be necessary for the Oxford vaccine to be a two-jab process.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted: “This is very positive news. A huge well done to our brilliant, world-leading scientists & researchers at @UniofOxford”.

This is very positive news. A huge well done to our brilliant, world-leading scientists & researchers at @UniofOxford.
There are no guarantees, we’re not there yet & further trials will be necessary - but this is an important step in the right direction.https://t.co/PRUTu8rlPF

— Boris Johnson #StayAlert (@BorisJohnson) July 20, 2020

However he then cautioned: “There are no guarantees, we’re not there yet and further trials will be necessary – but this is an important step in the right direction.”

There were also ground- breaking developments in a small non-peer reviewed study of 101 Southampton Hospital patients who were given an inhaled protein usually used for multiple- sclerosis patients.

Those given the interferon beta drug, SNG001 from the biotech company Synairgen, were twice as likely to recover as those given a placebo, the research has shown.

The study also found patients receiving the drug had a 79 per cent lower risk of developing severe disease. Richard Marsden, Synairgen’s chief executive said: “This assessment of SNG001 in COVID-19 patients could signal a major breakthrough in the treatment of hospitalised COVID-19 patients. Our efforts are now focused on working with the regulators and other key groups to progress this potential COVID-19 treatment as rapidly as possible.”

Meanwhile UK taxpayers have given £87m to the Oxford vaccine trials and Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the UK had already ordered 100m doses of the Oxford vaccine, manufactured by AstraZeneca, to be deployed if the stage three trials are successful.

The UK has also ordered 30 million doses of a different vaccine being developed by German firm BioNTech and the US company Pfizer, and 60 million doses from France’s Valneva in a hedging of bets to ensure the country has access to various vaccine types.

The Oxford vaccine trial has moved to stage three trials around the world which involves 30,000 US patients, a paediatric study, and several thousand people in Brazil and South Africa.

On Monday there were just 580 new cases of coronavirus infection in the UK and 11 deaths across the country, the lowest reported since the pandemic began, despite significant easing of lockdown and masks only compulsory on public transport.

That means researchers have had to look elsewhere for the large scale trial to determine how effective the vaccine is.

Professor Andrew Pollard, chief investigator of the Oxford vaccine trial said: “The Phase I/II data for our coronavirus vaccine shows that the vaccine did not lead to any unexpected reactions and had a similar safety profile to previous vaccines of this type. The immune responses observed following vaccination are in line with what we expect will be associated with protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, although we must continue with our rigorous clinical trial program to confirm this”.

He added: “We saw the strongest immune response in the 10 participants who received two doses of the vaccine, indicating that this might be a good strategy for vaccination.”

The Oxford vaccine is a chimpanzee adenovirus viral vector (ChAdOx1) vaccine that expresses the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. It uses a weakened common cold virus that infects chimpanzees, and is genetically modified to code for the spike protein of the human SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Prof Pollard said: “This means that, when the adenovirus enters vaccinated people’s cells, it also delivers the spike protein genetic code. This causes these people’s cells to produce the spike protein and helps teach the immune system to recognise the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”

The Oxford vaccine appears to induce an antibody response within 28 days and T-cell response within 14 days. The antibodies lasted until the end of the 56 day trial.

A Chinese vaccine, CanSino, which also piggybacks coronavirus genes onto a common cold virus, also published promising results of its trial on 508 people in The Lancet on Monday. Of those that received a high dose of vaccine, 95 per cent had immune responses 28 days later. In the low dose group 91 per cent had some immune response a month later.