Covid-19 vaccine developed in China shows promising results in early human trials: Report
As the coronavirus pandemic shows no sign of abating with the global cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus surpassing 5.2 million and deaths crossing 338,000, the race to find a cure for it including a drug and a vaccine has also gained momentum.
Researchers say that a vaccine developed in China, that has reached phase one clinical trial appears to be safe and may protect people from the coronavirus, according to a report in New York Times.
The report, based on a Lancet study, cited an early-stage trial conducted by researchers at several laboratories involving 108 participants aged between 18 and 60. In the trial, those who received a single dose of the vaccine produced certain immune cells, called T cells, within two weeks while the antibodies needed for immunity peaked at 28 days after the inoculation.
As the coronavirus pandemic shows no sign of abating with the global cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus surpassing 5.2 million and deaths crossing 338,000, the race to find a cure for it including a drug and a vaccine has also gained momentum.
Governments, drugmakers and researchers are working on around 100 vaccine programmes but experts say that a safe and effective vaccine could take 12 to 18 months to develop.
The vaccine in China reported on Friday was made with a virus, called Ad5, modified to carry genetic instructions into a human cell, says the NYT report. The cell begins making a coronavirus protein; the immune system learns to recognize the protein and attack it, in theory preventing the coronavirus from ever gaining a foothold.
The final results of the trial will be evaluated in six months, the study said, reports news agency PTI.
“These results represent an important milestone. The trial demonstrates that a single dose of the new adenovirus type 5 vectored COVID-19 (Ad5-nCoV) vaccine produces virus-specific antibodies and T cells in 14 days,” said study co-author Wei Chen from the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology. Based on the results, Chen said the vaccine is a potential candidate for further investigation, reports PTI.
However ,the NYT report said only a subset of people in the new trial produced neutralizing antibodies to the coronavirus, the kinds of molecules needed for immunity.
People between 45 and 60 years of age also produced weaker immune responses following vaccination than younger participants.
Also, the results of the trial of Chinese vaccine are based on data from a short period and it is not clear how long its effect may last.
The participants in the trials also experienced many side effects depending on the potency of the dose administered.
Those with the highest dose showed the most side-effects with about 80 percent of the participants reporting at least one side effect, all expected with a viral vaccine, experts said. Almost half of the participants reported fever, fatigue and headaches, and about one in five had muscle pain, the NYT reported.
Also, scientists, including those from the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in China said further research is needed to confirm whether the vaccine protects against SARS-COV-2 infection, PTI reported.
Of the other vaccine trials around the world, US-based Moderna Inc announced earlier this week that its vaccine appeared to be safe and effective, based on results from eight people in its trial.
Developers of a Covid-19 vaccine at the University of Oxford in UK described their efforts as progressing “very well”, moving to the next phase after completing 1,000 immunisations by its candidate-vaccine on healthy human adults. The human trials were first initiated in April. The next phase, the second in the typical three phases of trials that a vaccine goes through, involves enrolling up to 10,260 adults and children to assess the immune response to the vaccine in people of different ages and assess if there is a variation.
(With inputs from PTI)
