The race for a vaccine against Covid-19 is reaching an important stage, in light of the possibility that one of the main contender vaccines will be approved before Christmas.
In an interview with the Guardian, Kate Bingham, who heads the UK vaccine task force, said the UK is in "a very good place".
It is expected that within a few weeks, the first results will appear that will show if one of the vaccines is actually working. It could be the University of Oxford in partnership with the drug company AstraZeneca. It could be Moderna in the US Or it could be Pfizer and the German company BioNTech.
The UK alone has purchased six of the hundreds of vaccines in development. It has two of the three experimental vaccines which are heading towards the final stage - AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Kate Bingham said she thinks the vaccine will be out before Christmas.
Vaccines are tested in three main stages. In the final trials, about 50,000 people are tested. Half of them get the experimental vaccine, while the others get something else. None of them is aware of what he used. Vaccine assignment codes are kept in secret computer files.
Evidence of the second phase of the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca showed that people over the age of 56 - and some over the age of 70 - produced the same antibody response as younger volunteers. The data also showed that fewer side effects were reported in the elderly, which is encouraging.
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Source: Guardian
