This is a promising advance in the fight against the Covid-19. A vaccine project developed by the University of Oxford, in partnership with the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca, generated "a strong immune response" in a trial on more than 1,000 patients. The results of this clinical trial were published on Monday July 20 in the British medical journal The Lancet.

This clinical trial is only at a preliminary phase and its effectiveness will have to be established in a phase 3 trial, on a larger number of participants, before considering their large-scale commercialization.

The release of data on the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca comes as the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan also said on Monday that it had recorded positive results on its vaccine trial. The Ad5-nCOV vaccine candidate developed by CanSino Biologics and the Chinese military research unit has been shown to be safe and elicits an immune response in most recipients, researchers said on Monday.

A vaccine that could be available by the end of the year

These results were eagerly awaited as many researchers and laboratories around the world are racing against the clock to find a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19. "If our vaccine works, it is a promising option because it can be easily produced on a large scale," said Sarah Gilbert, a researcher at Oxford University.

According to Adrian Hill, a researcher at the University of Oxford, the AZD1222 vaccine could be available by the end of the year.

The Oxford and CanSino vaccines are based on a modified adenovirus, which does not replicate, which makes them safer, especially for fragile patients.

Neither trial recorded any serious adverse events. The most common side effects were fever, fatigue and pain at the injection site.

With AFP

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