Oxford University Vaccine Trial Shows ‘Double Immunity’ Against COVID-19

Oxford Vaccine Trial Shows ‘Double Immunity’ Against COVID-19 | More Aggressive Testing, Including Clinical Trials in the United States.

A COVID-19 Vaccine trial that Oxford University researchers say is on pace to be ready before the end of the year just a few hours ago. Oxford University released the results of phase 1 trial that found the COVID-19 vaccine does create double immunity antibody cells and kills T cells now.

Let's translate that for you. They are ready to move forward with more aggressive testing including clinical trials right there in the United States. It's early stage trials but they are significant without a doubt. The researchers at Oxford University are preparing for a trial of 30,000 people there in the us that they think will start in just a few weeks. So there is more testing to go but what they have found and this is published in the lancet in the past hour is that it does produce an immune response and that it is safe according to this early trial of around just over 1,000 people. One of the important aspects of this is that it appears to give you a double defense against Coronavirus. So it acts at the antibody level and also at the cellular level. It allows the body to attack the Coronavirus when it's inside human cells and also to attach itself to the Coronavirus to prevent it getting into cells.

The lead researcher, Layman explained a little more, "We are getting both sides of the immune system stimulated and that is fairly unusual for vaccines. Traditionally vaccines have been designed to stimulate antibody responses that is been the focus of other vaccine types. We do get good antibody responses that are functional. They neutralize the virus, they stop at infecting cells but in addition we are getting this cellular immune response with lymphocytes that can kill infected cells so that is an advantage and we think that will increase the chances that this type of vaccine will be affected."

Just reading a little more from the news release that has just been published, it says the immune response is maybe even greater after a second dose according to a subgroup of 10 participants. Remember the overall test just over a thousand people and it talks about minor side effects that can be reduced by taking paracetamol.