US President Donald Trump while addressing the daily White House coronavirus briefing said “we are very close to a vaccine”, after noting vaccine trials taking place in the US, Germany, the United Kingdom and China. Vice-President Mike Pence and Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus taskforce co-ordinator were also present when he made the announcement.
“We have a lot of great, brilliant minds working on this. Unfortunately we’re not very close to testing because when testing starts it takes a period of time, but we’ll get it done,” he said.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top infectious diseases expert, had previously said that a vaccine will likely take 12-18 months to be approved for widespread use. Most health experts also agree that it would take at least 12-18 months before a vaccine is ready.
After Trump, Vice-President Mike Pence said the data continues to show “promising signs of progress” in the US fight against coronavirus. Major virus hotspots including the New York Metro Area, New Jersey, Connecticut, Detroit and New Orleans “all appear to be past their peak”, Pence said.
Meanwhile, the first human trial of a coronavirus vaccine has begun in the UK. Two volunteers were injected, the first of more than 800 people recruited for the study, the BBC reported.
Half will receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and half a control vaccine which protects against meningitis but not coronavirus.
The design of the trial means volunteers will not know which vaccine they are getting, though doctors will. Elisa Granato, one of the two who received the jab, told the BBC: “I’m a scientist, so I wanted to try to support the scientific process wherever I can.”
The vaccine was developed in under three months by a team at Oxford University. Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at the Jenner Institute, led the pre-clinical research.
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