Coronavirus Vaccine To Be Tested In the UK From Thursday – Government Announce

A COVID-19 vaccine developed at the University of Oxford will be trialed on humans in the UK from Thursday this week.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock today said he was ‘throwing everything at’ Britain’s attempt to develop the first vaccine in the world.

The Government will give the scientists an extra £20million to help with their trials, Mr. Hancock said, and a further £22.5m to a project at Imperial College London.

The Oxford vaccine, known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 will be trialed on up to 510 people out of a group of 1,112 aged 18 to 55. It is recruiting volunteers in London, Bristol, Oxford and Southampton.

It is the first British-made vaccine to go into real-world trials and carries with it huge hopes that it will provide a key to getting out of lockdown and banishing COVID-19.

The virus has now infected more than 125,000 people and killed 17,339 in the UK and the UK is on course to end up one of the worst-hit nations in the world.

Mr Hancock said developing vaccines is an ‘uncertain science’ which usually takes years but that manufacturing capacity will be ramped up in case the jab is a success and is suitable to roll out to the public.

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