Vaccine race heats up as UK hopes for 30 million Covid-19 jab roll-out in Sept – The Wall Street Journal

Over the weekend the UK government announced that a Covid-19 vaccine developed by the Jenner Institute at Oxford University could be rolled out to 30 million people in the country by September; if the trials are successful. In an interview with Biznews at the end of March, the Director of the Jenner Institute prof Adrian Hill was confident that their vaccine could work, and it has since been backed by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, which has decided to start producing large quantities of Oxford's Vaccitech vaccine. A surprisingly link to South Africa has also emerged; Sygnia Founder and CEO Magda Wierzycka is the biggest individual shareholder in the Oxford Scientific Innovation Fund that owns the patents for Oxford University, including the one for Vaccitech. The scientists at Oxford hope to know by mid-June whether the jab is effective and safe for humans. But this is not the only company working on a vaccine; there are, as the Wall Street Journal points out in this article, at least 100 vaccines in development globally and at least eight have started testing in humans. But most trials are being done on humans in the age group from 18-55 and Peter Loftus writes that it is uncertain whether people who are older than that would benefit from a coronavirus vaccine. – Linda van Tilburg

Coronavirus vaccine front-runners emerge, rollouts weighed

By Peter Loftus

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