London: The United Kingdom has started human trials as the vaccination has proved to be safe in the case of animals. Around 300 people are expected to be on a vaccine trial. There are overall 120 vaccination programmes around the world.
The vaccination trial would be led by Prof Robin Shattock along with his colleagues in the Imperial College of London. Kathy, (39), is one of the volunteers who would play a strong role in fighting against the coronavirus. She is still uncertain of her role and is willing to play the role until the things get back to normal. After the first phase of the trial, another trial is expected to help in the month of October where 6000 people would be on trial. The Imperial team expected that the vaccine trials would be successful and the vaccines could be distributed all around the UK and overseas by early 2021.
The Duke, Prince William, met the volunteers participating in the fight against coronavirus. Meanwhile, many traditional vaccines are also a part of the trail as the Imperial vaccine has seen a new approach that would use synthetic strands of the genetic code, RNA that replicates the virus. The approach is that the injected vaccine would also replicate itself and would instruct the cell of the body to make the copies of the spike protein of the virus. The vaccine would train the immune system to recognize the virus and fight without developing COVID-19.
One litre of the synthetic material would help to produce 2 million doses. The manufacturing of the doses was shifted from the US to the UK as the doses needed to be produced in masses. The Imperial vaccine would immunize one volunteer on the first day and three more volunteers every 48 hours. The numbers would ramp up after a week.
More than 120 coronavirus vaccines are developed and 13 are on clinical trials whereby, 5 in China, 3 in the US, 2 in the UK and 1 in Russia, Germany and Australia. All the vaccine teams are fighting against the virus instead of competing amongst themselves. Chief investigator of the study, Dr Katrina Pollock said that she was optimistic about the trial and hence, she participated. The research has been funded by 41 million pounds from the UK government.