Boost in vaccine hunt as jab prompts immune response

IN a rare bit of good Covidrelated news, results show the coronavirus vaccine developed at Oxford University works perfectly.

Great hopes rest on the jab, which is a global frontrunner and has been shown to safely trigger an immune response in volunteers who were given it during early trials.

But unlike traditional vaccines which use a weakened virus, or small amounts of it, the vaccine causes the body to manufacture part of the Covid virus itself.

Now researchers l ed by the University of Bristol have found the technology works f or the coronavirus, just as it has for similar viruses in the past.

A study using cells in the laboratory found the vaccine effectively delivers the instructions for the Covid protein, which cells copy thousands of times to produce it in l arge amounts. That gets the protein into someone’s body so their immune system is primed to recognise the virus and fight it off without them falling ill.

Dr David Matthews, reader in virology from Bristol’s School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, who led the research, said: ‘Until now, the technology hasn’t been able to provide answers with such clarity, but we now know the vaccine is doing everything we expected... that is only good news in our fight against the illness.’

While the world waits for the results of trials on whether the Oxford vaccine actually works, the new findings are the next step f o r war d . Scientists found instructions from the vaccine were copied accurately by cells, making the protein correctly.

Sarah Gilbert, who leads the Oxford University vaccine trial, said: ‘The study confirms that large amounts of the coronavirus spike protein are produced with great accuracy, and this goes a long way to explaining the success of the vaccine in i nducing a strong immune response.’ The results emerged as the UK’s chief scientific adviser warned a widespread roll-out of a vaccine for Covid-19 is unlikely to take place before next year, even if a ‘few doses’ are available before Christmas.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Patrick Vallance said: ‘Things are progressing well, there are vaccines that produce an immune response, they’re in phase three clinical trials, we should be

‘Not until spring or so next year’

seeing some data read- outs over the course of this year.’

However, he said he remains ‘of the view that the possibility of wider-spread use of vaccines isn’t going to be until spring or so next year, by the time we get enough doses and enough understanding of the outputs to use them’.

He added that the aim would be for a vaccine to allow the relaxing of measures such as social distancing and mask-wearing.