Highlights:
- Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine show promise
- The vaccine is shown to activate T-cells and production of antibodies
- Serum Institute of India has also partnered with AstraZeneca to mass-produce the vaccine
A glimmer of home comes for the world in these dark times of the novel Coronavirus pandemic as the interim data from the clinical trials published in The Lancet – a peer reviewed medical journal, on Monday which showed that after the use of the vaccines being developed by the University of Oxford on candidates, they were safe and the vaccine started providing immunity against the deadly virus after 14 days of the first dose.
The vaccine is being co-developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc, a British pharmaceutical giant and Serum Institute from India will mass produce the vaccine for both low and middle-income countries, which also includes India.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Serum Institute Adar Poonawalla said that the firm could soon apply for the permission from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) V G Somani for a trial of the vaccine in India.
Poonawalla said, “We will be applying for the licensure trials to the Indian regulator in a week’s time. As soon as they grant us permission, we will begin with the trials for the vaccine in India. In addition, we will soon start manufacturing the vaccine in large volumes,”.
In June, AstraZeneca licenced the vaccine to Serum Institute of India to supply an additional 1 billion or 100 crore doses, principally for the low and middle income countries. The total manufacturing capacity stands at 2 billion or 200 crore as of now.
The preliminary results from the first and second phase of the Oxford trial which included 1,077 healthy adults from the age group of 18 to 55 years, found that the vaccine activated T-cell immune response along with antibodies up to day 56 of the ongoing trials.
The Chief Investigator of the Oxford Vaccine trial, Andrew Pollard was quoted saying, “The immune responses observed following vaccination are in line with what we expect will be associated with protection against the SARS-CoV2 virus, although we must continue with our rigorous clinical trial programme to confirm this,” in a statement by AstraZeneca.
Pollard added that the strongest immune response was seen in participants who received 2 doses of the Oxford vaccine which indicated that it could be a good strategy of vaccination.
The Oxford vaccine named ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 has shown an increase in the T-cell responses targeting the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in 43 participants of clinical trials with the response peaking after 2 weeks according to the peer review Journal.
T-cells are a type of white bold cells which play an important part in the immune system of the human body and is at the core of adaptive immunity.
The late stage phase 2 and 3 trials are underway in not just the UK but also in Brazil, and South Africa. The trials will also start in the US, said AstraZeneca in a statement.
The University of Oxford’s vaccine is one of the 2 vaccines under development which are showing promising results, the other being China’s CanSino Biologic’s vaccine which has shown positive results in its Phase 2 of trials.
Having said that, the world is currently putting its hope on the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford mainly because of the volume that have put in place.
