The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Expert says coronavirus vaccine could be a ‘gameender’.
Early tests hailed as encouraging as the battle to beat the virus goes on
A Tayside respiratory expert has hailed a Covid-19 vaccine as a potential “gameender” in the battle against the virus.
Dundee University’s Professor James Chalmers, chairman of respiratory research at the British Lung Foundation, welcomed trial results announced yesterday by Oxford University which showed strong immune responses and no early safety concerns.
He said: “This vaccine has been developed more quickly than any vaccine in history and it is remarkable they are now in a position to move into a large trial to test its effectiveness and safety.
“We talk about game-changers – this is not yet a game-changer, but if the vaccine works as well as we all hope it will in the larger study now under way, it’s not so much a game-changer as a game-ender. Covid-19 would become another vaccine-preventable disease and life could return to ‘normal’.”
The results of the latest trial into the vaccine, published in the scientific journal The Lancet, have been hailed as an important step towards producing a safe and effective vaccine.
Prof Chalmers, a frontline member of the Ninewells Covid-19 team and Dundee University academic, said the results were “encouraging”.
“They show the vaccine is producing a strong immune response that can neutralise the virus which bodes well for larger and longer-term studies,” he said.
“The vaccine also looks safe but it’s early days, because we still need to know whether the immunity generated by the virus will prevent people becoming infected, and demonstrating vaccine safety requires us to follow up vaccinated patients for a much longer period of time.”
An ideal vaccine should be effective after one or two vaccinations and work in target populations, including older adults and those with other health conditions, researchers said. It should confer protection for a minimum of six months, and reduce onward transmission of the virus to contacts.
Further trials are taking place in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.
Dr Mike Lonergan, senior statistician and epidemiologist at Dundee University, said: “The results are about as good as they could have hoped for.”
“This vaccine has been developed more quickly than any vaccine in history.
PROF JAMES CHALMERS