The leader of a team of British scientists seeking to develop a coronavirus vaccine has said he is “very confident” one will be found.
Professor Robin Shattock, from Imperial College’s Department of Infectious Disease, said Covid-19 is a less difficult target than diseases such as HIV or influenza.
“I think we are very confident that some vaccines will come through and work,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“There are so many groups working on different approaches and the virus is not as difficult a target as some of the things we have seen before.
“The main issue is that it doesn’t seem to be changing very much. So it is a target we have in our sights and it is very different from influenza, which changes every year.
“As long as this virus stays relatively stable it will be very easy to lock our sights on it in terms of targeting a vaccine.”
Meanwhile, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock announced at the UK government's daily press conference on Tuesday that a trial involving humans on a coronavirus vaccine will get underway tomorrow after its development was accelerated.
The trial is being led by Professor of Vaccinology Sarah Gilbert at Oxford University.
Funding was also announced for trials at Oxford University and Imperial College London.
Mr Hancock said both trials were making "rapid progress."
To help with this, he said Imperial College is to receive £22.5 million to support its phase two clinical trials and Oxford will be granted £20 million to fund its clinical trials.
Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University said of their project: "The prospects are very good, but it is clearly not completely certain."
She added they had already been given permission to recruit volunteers, take blood tests, explain the process and check their health status.
She said there were many crucial stages to the vaccine development.
These start with immunising healthy 18 to 55-year-olds, before moving into older age groups, looking at the safety and immune response to the vaccine.
"That's important because it's the older population that we really need to protect with the vaccine," she explained.
A vaccine is regarded as a key element of the UK's emergence from lockdown to prevent further outbreaks of the coronavirus along with widespread testing and contact tracing and drugs that will potentially cure people with the worst symptoms.
So far, more than 17,000 people have died in hospitals in the UK from coronavirus, with the toll expected to rise when deaths in the community and care homes are added to the total.
