Oxford University’s efforts to bring the world’s first Covid-19 vaccine did not yield desired results.
This is one of the eight vaccines that are undergoing quality tests for implementation in humans.
Scientists have reportedly observed that the vaccine failed to when tested on monkeys (rhesus macaque).
However, the vaccine has been identified to be protective against pneumonia.
Initial reports from the trials have reportedly inspired India’s Serum Institute to think of the vaccine as a solution to Covid-19.
In this regard, the company had announced plans to manufacture 4-5 million doses by the end of May 2020.
However, the final results on pre-print server bioRxiv proved that this could not be a solution to stop the cause of infection and its spread among humans.
Rajesh Gokhle, former head of the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, read the paper and concluded that no company would come forward to test this on humans after seeing results on monkeys.
“Despite this marked difference in virus replication in the lungs, reduction in viral shedding from the nose was not observed,” say the researchers.
The UK Government announced GBP 65.5 million additional funding for this vaccine project yesterday.
It had also informed that 30 million doses would be made available in the UK by September 2020, if the virus passes the efficacy tests.
Meanwhile, another trial process by a US firm has reportedly delivered the desired results, raising hopes on the Covid-19 vaccine possibility.
The test conducted on a group of eight individuals showed all the eight people developing antibody response on par with those infected.
Thus, they opined that the vaccine is safe for human use.
However, these results are from the preliminary phase of the trials and don’t fully confirm that the treatment will work.
Whatever, US vaccine trials are now reportedly ahead of the UK’s efforts.
Let’s wait and watch to see if the desired results come true!
