An experimental COVID-19 vaccine, being developed by the University of Oxford, is safe and produced an immune response in early-stage clinical trials in healthy volunteers, according to trial results published in UK based medical Journal ‘The Lancet’. It said the vaccine, called AZD1222, developed by pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and scientists at Britain’s University of Oxford, did not prompt any serious side effects and induced strong antibody and T-cell immune responses.
Scientists at Oxford University said that they found their experimental COVID-19 vaccine produced a dual immune response in people aged 18 to 55 that lasted at least two months after they were immunized. The vaccine was tested on 1077 people in phase I and II of the human trials. The result published at The Lancet journal said the vaccine triggered a T-cell response within 14 days of vaccination and an antibody response within 28 days. A T-cell response refers to the attack of the white blood cells on the cells that are infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
“The Phase I/II data for our coronavirus vaccine shows that the vaccine did not lead to any unexpected reactions and had a similar safety profile to previous vaccines of this type. The immune responses observed following vaccination are in line with what previous animal studies have shown are associated with protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, although we must continue with our rigorous clinical trial programme to confirm this in humans,” said Professor Andrew Pollard, Chief investigator of the Oxford Vaccine Trial at Oxford University and co-author of the study.
