LONDON – The British University of Oxford said on Saturday it would test the impact of its Covid-19 vaccine on children, and become the first developer to investigate whether the coronavirus shot is effective in young people.
The University will in a statement assess the “safety and immune responses” in children and young adults between 6 and 17 years of age of the vaccine it developed with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
The statement, which enrolls 300 volunteers, will take place in three English cities, London, Southampton and Bristol. The vaccinations are expected later in February, he said.
“Although most children are relatively unaffected by the coronavirus and it is unlikely to go bad with the infection, it is important to determine the safety and immune response to the vaccine in children and adolescents, as some children may benefit from vaccination,” said Professor Andrew Pollard. , lead investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial.
The two-dose Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper and easier to distribute than some competitors.
AstraZeneca plans to produce 3 billion doses this year and said it has multiple orders from countries including the United States, Canada, Japan and Brazil, as well as the United Kingdom.
Britain has the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Europe with more than 116,000 deaths and is in its third national exclusion because authorities are trying to contain new, more transmissible virus variants. Most schools are also closed.
In recent weeks, there have been concerns about the efficacy of the vaccine for global mutations, especially a variant found in South Africa.
Earlier this month, the UK also announced it would make a trial to take the vaccine. Patients will receive different vaccines for their first and second doses: either the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot followed by the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, or vice versa.
Britain has backed its public vaccination effort, as more than 14 million people out of a population of about 66 million have so far received their first vaccine dose.
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Israel and the United Arab Emirates are far ahead of the vaccination detectives among the countries of the USA and the European Union, according to the global website for vaccination detectives.
More than 2 million people around the world have died from the coronavirus so far, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Reuters contributed to this report.
