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A vaccine will most likely not be ready for a year to 18 months, Irish pharmaceutical experts have said.

The Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA) cautioned that while scientists are making progress, it may be October 2021 before one is developed, tested, approved and manufactured.

And the group, which represents the international biopharmaceutical industry, says a vaccine is the only way to protect the world’s population against new waves of the deadly virus.

Jon Barbour, Director of Medical Affairs with pharma giant GSK Ireland, said: “The great challenge in the Covid-19 pandemic is to develop an effective vaccine quickly.

“The good news is that this is the first time in history that there has been such a concerted global effort and collaboration between pharmaceutical companies and research organisations to find a specific vaccine.

“According to the latest data from the World Health Organisation, there are three vaccine candidates in clinical evaluation and at least 67 vaccine candidates in preclinical evaluation globally.”

GSK is working with fellow pharma giant Sanofi to develop an adjuvanted Covid-19 vaccine. An adjuvant is an ingredient of a vaccine that helps promote a better immune response.

They can also reduce the amount of virus needed for production of a vaccine, which can allow for greater supplies of vaccine to be manufactured.

The plan is to have it available in the second half of next year but Mr Barbour warned that vaccine development is a “lengthy, complex process”.

He added: “Once a vaccine has come through the clinical trial process, the next challenge will be scaling up manufacturing to produce millions of doses which will require a partnership approach between pharmaceutical manufacturers that have the expertise and resources to produce vaccines to meet global need.”

A number of other companies are also exploring vaccine technologies for early phase clinical trials.

Among them is Johnson and Johnson, which expects to start human clinical trials on a lead vaccine candidate by September, with the first batches available for emergency use by early next year while Pfizer has signed a deal with Germany’s BioNTech to co-develop a potential vaccine.

But the IPHA has warned there can be no ‘short-cuts’ on the testing needed to ensure a vaccine, or a treatment, is safe and effective as countries across the globe continue to battle the killer disease.

It comes as the first human trials for a Covid-19 vaccine in the UK began on Thursday at the University of Oxford.

Two participants – a scientist and a cancer researcher – said they wanted to help in what could be a groundbreaking development in the fight against the disease.

The Oxford Vaccine Group was hoping to repeat the process with six more volunteers on Saturday, moving to larger numbers on Monday.