Coronavirus vaccine latest: Oxford scientists to start human trials by end of this week The vaccine could be available for public use by the Autumn

Human trials for a coronavirus vaccine are set to begin by the end of the week. The trials by the University of Oxford are at the forefront of global efforts to stop the pandemic.

Professor Sarah Gilbert told the BBC her team expects to start injecting volunteers with the test vaccine “at the end of this week”, to establish whether it is a safe and effective method of preventing coronavirus infection.

Human trials are expected to last six to eight weeks, after which the drug would have to be approved by regulators. If all goes to plan, the Oxford team say their vaccine could be ready for public use by October.

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This is an unprecedented rate of development for a new drug, which usually take years to make their way from the laboratory into public use.

Safety first

Despite the accelerated timetable, ensuring the vaccine is safe for everyone will be vital. Many of the people most at risk from coronavirus are those with underlying health conditions including heart disease, diabetes and lung disease.

Prof Gilbert insisted all safety procedures were being followed even as researchers race through the drug development process. “We haven’t missed anything out, all of the normal approaches to safe testing of the vaccine – the very careful, controlled manufacturing of the vaccine – all of that is still being done,” she said.

She said the team have been able to progress much more quickly on developing the vaccine because the work is being funded upfront rather than waiting for early results to feed through into grant funding. “That’s why we are able to go faster but it doesn’t mean we have missed any of the steps to ensure the vaccine’s safety,” she said.

Lifetime immunity?

There are now about 80 vaccine projects underway worldwide, but the Oxford vaccine is way ahead of most – only the US and China have vaccines at human trial stage.

However, it is still still not clear whether any eventual vaccine would be a one-off shot that could provide immunity, or whether it would need an annual top-up dose. “The first thing is to have a vaccine that works at all, and then to start looking at how long the immunity lasts for,” Prof Gilbert said.