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Elisa Granato is the first volunteer in an initial group of 800 to be part of the groundbreaking trial, which is expected to be the answer to immunization against the deadly virus and help ease the blocking measures put in place to curb its rapid transmission. .
“I am a scientist, so I wanted to try to support the scientific process whenever I can,” Granato told the BBC when she was injected at Oxford, where the trial began this week.
“Since I don’t study viruses, I felt a little useless these days, so I felt this is a very easy way to support the cause,” he said, as he injected himself on his 32nd birthday on Thursday.
Cancer researcher Edward O’Neill joins Granato as the first two candidates, one of whom has been injected with the Covid-19 vaccine being tested and the other a control vaccine that protects against meningitis.
Now they will be monitored for 48 hours to observe the impact of each one. Then, the scientists will gradually begin to inject more volunteers, healthy individuals between the ages of 18 and 55, in a similar process of half and half, without any of the participants knowing which vaccine has been injected.
“Personally, I have a high degree of confidence in this vaccine,” said Sarah Gilbert, a professor of vaccination at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, who is leading the research.
“Of course, we have to test it and get human data. We have to show that it really works and prevents people from becoming infected with coronavirus before using the vaccine in the general population,” he said, adding that he remains “very optimistic. “about the result
The team will know if the Covid-19 vaccine works by comparing the number of people who became infected with the coronavirus in the months following the trial.
Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, who is leading the trial, said: “We are chasing the end of this current epidemic wave. If we don’t get it, we won’t be able to know if the vaccine works in the coming months.
“But we hope there will be more cases in the future because this virus has not disappeared.”
The researchers began examining healthy volunteers in March for the “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19” vaccine trial in the Thames Valley region of England. ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is made from a virus (ChAdOx1), which is a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees, which has been genetically engineered to make it impossible for it to grow in humans.
The goal of the human trial is to assess whether healthy people can protect themselves from Covid-19 with this new vaccine called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. It will also provide valuable information on the safety aspects of the vaccine and its ability to generate good immune responses against the deadly virus.
By vaccinating with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, the Oxford University team hopes to make the body recognize and develop an immune response to the spike protein that will help prevent the SARS-CoV-2 or Covid-19 virus from entering cells human and therefore avoid infection.
To date, vaccines made with the ChAdOx1 virus have been administered to more than 320 people and have been shown to be safe and well tolerated, although they can cause temporary side effects such as temperature, headache, or arm pain.
Trial participants will receive an electronic journal to record any symptoms experienced for seven days after receiving the vaccine. They will also record if they feel unwell for the next three weeks.
After vaccination, participants will attend a series of follow-up visits. During these visits, the team will verify participants’ observations, take a blood sample and review the competition’s electronic journal. These blood samples will be used to assess the immune response to the vaccine.
There is a theoretical risk that the virus may induce a severe reaction to the coronavirus, but the scientists say their data suggests that the risk of the vaccine causing improved disease is minimal.
The team has already developed a vaccine against Mers, another type of coronavirus, using the same approach, and which had promising results in clinical trials.
The researchers are prioritizing the recruitment of local health workers in the trial, as they are more likely than others to be exposed to the virus. A larger trial of approximately 5,000 volunteers will begin in the coming months and will have no age limit. The Oxford University team is also considering a vaccine trial in Africa, possibly Kenya, where transmission rates are growing from a lower base.
The optimistic deadline being analyzed for around one million doses is for September. Agreements have been made with British and foreign manufacturers to manufacture the vaccine on a scale basis, should it prove effective.
The UK government has contributed an additional £ 20m to the Oxford University trials and said it is “throwing it all away” to find a coronavirus vaccine, a crucial step in starting to lift the stringent distancing blocking measures. social to suppress the spread of the deadly virus.
