London: The Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is showing a strong immune response in adults whose age are in the 60s and 70s.
The Lancet phase 2 findings, based on 560 healthy adult volunteers, are “encouraging”. Researchers are also in the process of testing whether the vaccine is capable of preventing people developing COVID-COVID-19, trialsphase 3 trials19 in much larger phase 3 trials.
BBC News reported that early results from the critical third phase are expected in the next few weeks.
The vaccine candidates of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have reported extremely encouraging results from preliminary phase 3 trials, suggesting 94-95% protection from the deadly virus.
The latest Oxford data is from stage 2 trials, which test safety of the vaccine and the body’s response. A major advantage of this vaccine is that it doesn’t need to be stored at very low temperatures, unlike the other candidates.
Oxford study lead Prof. Andrew Pollard was “absolutely delighted with the results for showing a strong immune response even in those over 70 years of age.”
Asked whether their vaccine will protect people against COVID-19, Pollard said they were “not there yet” and added that such data is expected to be released “before Christmas.”
Insisting that there was “no competition with other vaccines,” he said that multiple vaccines were needed to be successful in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
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