City scientists have launched a search for over 600 volunteers to trial a coronavirus vaccine.
Those leading the vaccine programme have said that the initial trial went well, and they are now looking for hundreds more volunteers. There are currently four trials happening around the world.
The vaccine was developed and the programme began at the University of Oxford Jenner Group and Oxford Vaccine Group. The first trial in Southampton involved 160 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 55.
Professor Saul Faust, Professor of Paediatric Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Southampton and Director of the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility at UHS, said
The early stages of the phase I trial have gone very well and we’re grateful for the many volunteers from Southampton who have come forward to help us assess the safety of the new vaccine and if healthy people can be protected from COVID-19.
Professor Faust also said:
We would now very much like to invite people from the Southampton area whose work brings them into possible contact with COVID patients or who are healthy and in the older age groups to take part in the next stage of trials of this Oxford COVID vaccine.
The volunteers in this study will receive either the COVID-19 vaccine or the licensed ‘control’ vaccine against meningitis and sepsis (the conjugate MenACWY vaccine) as comparison.
