Vaccine ‘could be rolled out in early 2021’ if trials go well

A COVID-19 vaccine could be rolled out across the country in the first half of next year if trials are successful, according to a scientist leading research in the UK.

Prof Robin Shattock, who heads a team developing a vaccine at Imperial College London, said that enough doses would be available for everyone in the UK if trials go “really well”.

But he warned there was “no certainty” that any of the vaccines currently being developed will be successful, as it depends on the level of immunity needed to prevent infection.

Appearing on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday, he said: “So we anticipate if everything goes really well that we’ll get an answer as to whether it works by early next year.

“And we have put in place the infrastructure to make that vaccine for the whole of the UK.

“So, assuming that the funding is there to purchase that vaccine, we could have [it] rolled out across the UK in the first half of next year.”

Some 15 volunteers have been vaccinated for the trial so far, which will be ramped up to include another 200-300 participants in the “coming weeks”.

Scientists developing a vaccine do not know what level of immunity people need to prevent infection, which makes the chance of success “difficult to predict”, according to Prof Shattock.

“If you only need a very small amount of immunity, I suspect most of the vaccines that are being developed will actually work, but if you need a very strong immune response or particular quality of immune response, we’ll see that actually it will be shaking out to some of these candidates,” he told the programme.

“We hope we will be the candidate, one of the candidates, that is successful, but there’s no certainty.”

He added that any vaccine will need to be introduced “very cautiously”.