Hopes small doses of vaccine could be on offer by early next year
Small amounts of a coronavirus vaccine could be made available to certain groups of people before the end of the year, according to the UK Government’s chief scientific adviser.
Sir Patrick Val lance said good progress was being made on developing a vaccine that could fight Covid-19.
In a televised press conference yesterday with England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitt y, Sir Patrick said a number of candidates had shown they could generate an immune response that ought to be protective.
He said: “We don’t yet know they will work, but there is increasing evidence that is pointing in the right direction and it is possible that some vaccine could be available before the end of the year in small amounts for certain groups. Much more likely that we’ll see vaccines becoming available over the first half of next year, again not certain, but pointed in the right direction, which then of course gives the possibility of a different approach to this virus .”
There are more than 240 vaccine trials taking place across the world, with more than 40 in clinical trials.
Nine of the trials are in the later stages, at phase two or three, including the University of Oxford’s vaccine trial.
Researchers at Imperial College London are also recruiting volunteers for the vaccine they are developing.
Health secretary Matt Hancock earlier told I TV’ s This Morning a “mass roll-out” of a vaccine could be seen in the early par t of next year if all goes well.
He said :“Hopefully in the first few months–there’ s still a chance of it coming on stream before Christmas, but we’ve then got to roll it out and the first people who will get it are the people who are most vulnerable–people in care homes, older people. There’s a series of different vaccines, but we are talking about– essentially, for it to have an impact on how we live our lives – we’re talking about the start of next year.”
Speaking at the press briefing, Prof Whitty also warned the virus was not getting milder as some people had suggested. Prof Whitty suggested science would eventually “ride to our rescue”, but that in the next six months it would have to be taken very seriously.
He said: “Lots of people have said maybe this is a milder virus than it was in April.
“But I’m afraid, although that would be great if that were true, we see no evidence that is the case.”
Prof Whitt y added: “What we’ve seen in other countries, and are now clearly seeing here, is that they’re not staying just in the younger age groups, and moving up the age bands and the mortality rates will be similar to – slightly lower than they were previously – but they will be similar to what we saw previously.”
Sir Patrick also said the size of the UK population with antibodies was still low, making the “vast majority” of people “susceptible” to Covid-19.
He explained that antibodies were not an“absolute protection” either, adding that immunity to the disease fades overtime. Sir Patrick said: “What we see is that some - thing under 8 per cent of the population have been infected as we measure the antibodies.”