Wills’ warning as he talks to vaccine team

PRINCE William has said the Covid-19 crisis must be “a wake-up call to people” amid the dangers of transmitting coronaviruses from animals to humans.

The Duke of Cambridge, 38, visited scientists working round the clock at Oxford University to develop a vaccine for the world.

Speaking to Professor Andrew Pollard, who is leading the clinical trial team, William said yesterday: “I was speaking to an expert the other day who said there were 1.5 million potential viruses that could hop from animals into humans. Hopefully this will be a wake-up call to people.”

Prof Pollard replied: “It comes at a time in human history when we’ve an enormous number of people on the planet, really good travel – and that’s great for a virus if you want to spread.

“So I think this is something we will really be focusing on in the future. The last big pandemic like this was 102 years ago. I am not sure we are going to wait that long for the next one. The world has changed since 1918.”

The Oxford team is at the forefront of the race to develop a vaccine and clinical trials have been under way in Britain since April 23.

Professor Sarah Gilbert told the Duke how the team had used their knowledge of working with vaccines against malaria, tuberculosis and MERS, another virus affecting the Middle East.

She said: “We know we could use our technology to make a vaccine quickly, so we decided to do that… even before we knew it was going to spread.”

It was the first time a member of the Royal Family has been seen wearing a mask.

He visited four volunteers who are taking part in clinical trials, and asked one: “What made you want to do this?”

The man replied: “I just want to help to try to get things back to normal.”

Pharmaceutical giant Astrazeneca and Oxford University have joined up to create and distribute a vaccine.

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