Fighting Covid-19
The fight against Covid-19 is going on globally. While the developing world is watching a breakthrough on developing a vaccine with bated breath the developed world is claiming some achievements on human trials.
Researchers at the University of Oxford believe they may have a breakthrough in their search for a COVID-19 vaccine after the team discovered that the jab could provide ‘double protection’ against the deadly coronavirus following early stage human trials.
Blood samples taken from a group of UK volunteers given a dose of the vaccine showed that it stimulated the body to produce both antibodies and killer T-cells. Though the discovery is promising because separate studies have suggested that antibodies may fade away within months while T-cells can stay in circulation for years.
However, the source cautioned that the results, while extremely promising, did not yet prove that the Oxford vaccine provides long-lasting immunity against the deadly virus.
The trials have been so promising that the Lancet’ medical journal has confirmed that it would be publishing early-stage human trial data from the Oxford team next week.
The success to formulate a vaccine will definitely boost the morale of the researchers who have been working overtime to procure a solution to the deadly virus that has cast a spell on the world.
Economies are shut, people are losing lives and jobs as no end seems to be in sight to the mess that the world has fallen into.
The Oxford University vaccine is one of more than 100 vaccines that are in development as the novel coronavirus continues to spread infecting more than 13 million people and killing at least 582,000 worldwide.
In India another positive breakthrough has also been reported as the human trial of Bharat Biotech’s anti-COVID-19 vaccine Covaxin began at Rohtak’s Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences on Friday.
Bharat Biotech got the country’s drug regulator’s approval to start clinical trials of its anti-Corona vaccine Covaxin recently. And the positive news is that the subjects have tolerated the vaccine and are doing fine for the time being.
Notably, in India there are over seven anti-corona vaccines at various stages of development in the country with two of them having received the drug regulator’s go-ahead to start the human clinical trials of their vaccines.
The developments have generated some hopes among the people as it is for the first time since December last that any major breakthrough has been achieved in the fight against Coronavirus. Let us all hope the move proves to be a success.
KV Network
