Oxford's COVID-19 vaccine trial has only 50% chance of success, says director

With the world racing to develop a potential vaccine for the novel coronavirus, the University of Oxford's experimental vaccine has only a 50 per cent chance of success, Adrian Hill, one of the professors heading the program told leading UK daily. As per reports, Oxford's Jenner institute is developing a potential vaccine with a pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca Plc, which is being considered as one of the front-runners in the global race to provide a shield against the deadly disease. 

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Adrian Hill and his team started the human trial of the experimental vaccine in April and helped the United Kingdom join the elite group of nations who have moved to the stage, including the United States, Germany, China, and Canada. The potential vaccine known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, is a chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector and was chosen as the most suitable vaccine technology for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine because it can generate a strong immune response from one dose and it is not a replicating virus, so it cannot cause an ongoing infection in the vaccinated individual, according to Oxford Vaccine Group. 

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ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine

As ChAdOx1 is not a replicating virus it makes it safer to give to children, the elderly, and anyone with a pre-existing condition such as diabetes. The work on the vaccine started in early January a day after scientists decoded the genomes of the virus, which much faster than any other vaccine development program took place in history. The vaccine also moved to the clinical trial stage in record time. Alongside Adrian Hill, the vaccine also being co-designed by Prof. Sarah Gilbert, Prof. Andrew Pollard, Prof. Teresa Lambe, Dr. Sandy Douglas. 

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