A vaccine for Covid-19 could soon be within grasp as British scientists kick off the world’s biggest human trial.
Up to 400 people have volunteered for the project, which is led by Oxford University and will test four drugs.
They include the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, an anti-inflammatory drug, a steroid and an anti-retroviral drug that is normally used to treat HIV.
The Recovery trial, which takes in 150 UK hospitals, will kick off within days and is due to wrap up in August.
Similar trials under way in the US and Europe have a few hundred patients in total.
Key Government adviser Sir John Bell, who is part of our vaccine taskforce, said: “If we can see evidence of a strong immune response by the middle or the end of May, then I think the game is on.
“Then, of course, there is the massive issue of how you manufacture at scale many billions of doses.”
Professor Peter Horby, another vaccine expert, added: “The UK is leading the global fight against the pandemic.
“We’ve set up this trial in record time. It’s the biggest trial in the world and realistically by June or July we will get a very clear signal on whether the drugs are effective.”
Drug companies and universities across the globe are racing to develop a Covid-19 vaccine.
There are now at least 62 efforts under way, according to the World Health Organisation.
But despite the hope of a breakthrough, Professor Will Irving, a virologist from Nottingham University, warned: “Until you try a vaccine, you don’t know whether it’s going to work or not.
"You can only prove that a vaccine works by appropriate clinical trials. There is a history of vaccine trials showing absolutely no effect.
“There are even some historical trials where the vaccine didn’t prevent the disease, it actually made it worse.
“With the best of intentions, you don’t know until you put it into trial. At a time of an epidemic like this, you could do it reasonably quickly.”
And health chiefs have also warned that it will be difficult to eliminate Covid-19 completely.
Dr Chris Smith, consultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University, said: “Most people are of the opinion, given how well optimised this new coronavirus is, it has a high prospect of becoming another circulating coronavirus and causing seasonal infections, or in rare cases more severe outbreaks.
“Because by the time that presumably happens, the vast majority of us will have become immune to it either because a vaccine has been invented or because we’ve become naturally infected with it.”
Dr David Nabarro, the WHO’s Covid-19 envoy, said this week that people will have to get used to a “new reality” of always wearing a mask as the virus will “stalk the human race” for some time.
