Berlin (AFP)

The race to discover a vaccine against the new coronavirus, the only possible way according to the UN towards a return to "normalcy", is intensifying with the first clinical trials carried out in Germany and in the United Kingdom.

In Germany, the federal authority responsible for the certification of vaccines on Wednesday gave the green light to clinical trials on humans conducted by the German laboratory BioNTech, based in Mainz, in connection with the American giant Pfizer.

These trials, the fifth in humans worldwide, according to the Paul Ehrlich Institute (IPE), constitute an "important step" to make a vaccine "available as soon as possible".

This authority claims to have given the green light after a "careful assessment of the potential risk / benefit ratio" of the product tested.

- First dose -

These clinical trials will initially be carried out on 200 healthy volunteers aged 18 to 55 years. A second phase should concern volunteers with a risk profile, according to the IPE.

They must consist, according to the PEI, in "determining the general tolerance of the vaccine tested and its capacity to propose an immune response against the pathogenic agent", an RNA virus, which has the particularity to mutate.

Trials are also slated to start in Britain on Thursday with a first dose administered to humans as part of a project piloted by the University of Oxford, under the aegis of the government.

In their first phase, they will involve 510 volunteers aged 18 to 55. Half of them will receive the potential new vaccine, the others a control vaccine.

A million doses will be produced by September in parallel with further research, so that if successful, the vaccine will be readily available. Their chances of success are evaluated by its designers at 80%.

In Germany, the IPE does not specify when exactly the tests will start. BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin recently assured, however, that they would start "at the end of April". Initial data may be available "in late June or early July," he added.

This laboratory, which specializes in cancer treatments, and Pfizer now expect to get the green light from the American health authorities to launch trials in the United States, which has become the epicenter of the pandemic.

Other laboratories are also expected to launch human trials in Germany in the coming months, says IPE.

There is currently no treatment or vaccine for Covid-19, which has killed more than 120,000 people worldwide and infected some two million.

Finding a vaccine is the only possible way to return to "normalcy" in the world, warned last week the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, calling in this area to accelerate projects in development.

A UN resolution, adopted on Monday, calls for "fair, effective and rapid" access to a possible vaccine.

- Merciless struggle -

Currently five projects are in the human trials stage, according to the German authorities.

First clinical trials were announced in mid-March by Chinese and American developers.

On March 16, Beijing approved the first trial of a vaccine developed by the military-backed Academy of Military Medical Sciences and the Hong Kong-listed biotechnology company CanSino Bio.

The same day, the American company Moderna, producer of drugs, had assured to have started tests on the man, in partnership with the Federal institutes of health.

The frantic quest for a vaccine against this virus that has brought the global economy down gives rise to a merciless struggle between certain countries.

The German government had to intervene to stop in extremis attempts, piloted by the White House, to take over the German pharmaceutical laboratory CureVac.

Beyond that, it is all of Europe, weakened by the epidemic, which is building up its safeguards in the face of plans to acquire strategic companies by foreign groups in search of good deals.

The European Commission recently urged the 27 EU countries to "protect themselves" against this threat.

© 2020 AFP