Vaccine will be ready to roll out in October under ‘best scenario’

THE Oxford vaccine against coronavirus will not be ready to roll out until October, researchers have said.

There were hopes that the drug could be in use by September if human trials continue to be successful, and the drugs company Astrazeneca is standing by ready to quickly produce 30 million vaccines.

But Prof Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, told a webinar of the Spanish Society of Rheumatology that the “best scenario” would see results from clinical trials in August and September and deliveries from October.

The month’s delay means Britain will be edging closer to winter flu season and the prospect of a second peak without a vaccine.

“This vaccine has shown very good results in trials with chimpanzees and has already moved on to the next phase of human trials,” he said in the webinar. “One of its advantages at the beginning was to demonstrate in previous tests that similar inoculations, including one last year against a previous coronavirus, were harmless to humans.”

It is thought the vaccine is likely to be needed annually, like the flu jab because a slightly different version of the virus may come seasonally. Last month Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, said Britain would be the first country in the world to get a vaccine, should trials be successful, and announced an extra £84 million in funding to accelerate research.

The Oxford vaccine is furthest along in human trials out of all in development and Prof Sara Gilbert, who is leading the research, predicted that it could be ready by the early autumn.

Earlier this month, Prof Gilbert said the trials may need to move to other countries because infection rates were

‘We are focusing on vaccinating health workers as they have the highest rates of virus infections’

so low now in Britain it was hard to know if the vaccine was working.

“We had hoped to have enough people vaccinated before the outbreak reached a peak, but the virus spread, rapidly triggering a lockdown, and rates of infections are now falling,” she told United Nations ambassadors.

“We are thus focusing on vaccinating healthcare workers as they have the highest rates of virus infections.”

The UK’S first Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Harwell, Oxon, will be operational by next summer, and able to produce enough vaccines for the whole population within six months.