Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Medicine EU

Quest for a Vaccine: Oxford Reaches Final Large-Scale Trial (msn.com) 256

An anonymous reader quotes The Washington Post: In the global race for a coronavirus vaccine, more than 100 labs, universities and drug companies have started off on experimental missions. But just 11 candidate vaccines, according to the World Health Organization, have reached the stage of clinical testing. The WHO says that only Oxford University's vaccine has reached what is known as Phase 3, the final and largest-scale trial... "There is quite a strong probability that the vaccine will work," said Walter Ricciardi, the World Health Organization's Italian government adviser.

But the vaccine is far from a sure thing, according to experts. It might not work, or it might give immunity to only some of those who are injected. Even once a vaccine makes it to market, it remains unknown whether it will offer long-term protection, or only for a year or two. The world will ultimately need more than one vaccine anyway, as demand will soar beyond what any one company could produce. "The expectation is that we will have a protective vaccine. Probably more than one," said Antonio Cassone, the former head of the infectious-disease department at Italy's national health institute.

"But nobody will know at that time how long the protection will last. We don't know the antibody duration. This will be yet another jump into the unknown."

A Chinese biotech firm has reported encouraging results in early-stage clinical trials and is also among the front-runners to crack the vaccine code.

The article adds that Oxford's vaccine "proved effective and safe with rhesus monkeys during the earliest stage of experimentation."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Quest for a Vaccine: Oxford Reaches Final Large-Scale Trial

Comments Filter:
  • by ZorinLynx ( 31751 ) on Sunday June 21, 2020 @10:44AM (#60208868) Homepage

    > it remains unknown whether it will offer long-term protection, or only for a year or two.

    If it offers at least a year of immunity perhaps we can just roll it into the standard annual flu shot most people get? That should allow us to mostly eradicate this thing within a few years, plus people who get the vaccine won't be have to wear masks or worry about catching it.

    • A bit too Optimistic (Score:5, Informative)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Sunday June 21, 2020 @12:04PM (#60209078) Journal

      That should allow us to mostly eradicate this thing within a few years

      The smallpox vaccine was invented in 1796 but smallpox was not eradicated until 1977 and immunity there was considerably longer-lived than 2 years and the virus could not live outside humans. Polio is still not eradicated and we have had a vaccine for that since 1955 which gives lifelong immunity although over the last 30 years we have reduced the number of cases per year from 350k to 33 [wikipedia.org].

      If immunity only lasts a couple of years then it is unlikely that we will ever be rid of the virus but, as you say, we can at least control it with regular vaccinations and life can get back to normal.

      • by dunkelfalke ( 91624 ) on Sunday June 21, 2020 @12:26PM (#60209138)

        Smallpox was eradicated because of an unprecedented WHO programme sponsored by the USSR and the USA paired with compulsory vaccination in many countries. Polio could have been, but wasn't thanks to the CIA and antivaxxers.

        • but wasn't thanks to the CIA and antivaxxers.

          This ones mostly on the CIA if we're both thinking of the same thing.

          Back around a decade ago, the CIA started using spies within the WHO to get out to hard-to-reach communities in Taliban controlled areas and setup arms deals and other military assistance things.

          Eventually the Taliban worked it out, and combined ,with their , frankly justified, paranoia about the west, lead them to consider the WHO.a national security risk to what remains of Taliban territory, a

          • by cusco ( 717999 )

            It was worse than that in some areas, in West Africa they forged papers saying they were UN health workers distributing polio vaccines and were injecting people with saline. Thousands of people mistakenly think their kids are safe from polio now.

          • by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

            I really hope the CIA has some secret things they have saved us from; because based on all their publicly known actions they might be the worlds most evil terrorist organization.

      • The smallpox vaccine was [...] considerably longer-lived than 2 years and the virus could not live outside humans.

        This is the important part. If the virus can live outside of humans, then in order to eradicate the virus, you not only have to vaccinate most of the people on the planet, you also have to vaccinate most of the animals which can host it. The latter is usually impossible (you can sometimes do it by leaving out bait food dosed with the vaccine).

        COVID-19 is currently theorized to have jumped t

        • then in order to eradicate the virus, you not only have to vaccinate most of the people on the planet, you also have to vaccinate most of the animals which can host it.

          If it's as infectious in animals as it is in humans (R0=2.5), those animal populations may achieve herd immunity very quickly. Note that the 60% threshold for herd immunity is not approached asymptotically; you get an overshoot to about 90% herd immunity at about 6 generations after the peak of infections. By then, the transmission number has dropped to Rt=0.25; with 15 more generations it's gone even if you have a population of a billion.

          It's "flattening the curve" (reduction of Rt by a temporary change i

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          It can live outside of humans, domestic dogs and cats have caught it (although its still unknown if they can pass it on). Although it originated in bats the virus was resident in some different host for several years until it evolved into a human-transmissible form, the most strongly suspected hosts are feral dogs which had eaten dead or ill bats.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      What's this about needing more than one though? Are they saying they won't licence it to be mass produced at many factories? Or that they need two different ones to make use of two different types of drug manufacturing processes?

    • by rally2xs ( 1093023 ) on Sunday June 21, 2020 @12:41PM (#60209184)

      I'm 73 and quite likely to croak if I get this damned thing, soooo... if it last for 3 months, and I have to go back to CVS and get a new shot each time, I will.

      Without a vaccine I'm home, mowing the lawn, clearing some land out back, cleaning the blank out of the house, making things "better" within my several computers, cleaning out the garage, scanning excessive printed matter into digital form with a fast scanner and hauling the printed matter to recycling, and pretty much everything I could do at home. Also, shopping is at 6 AM into and out of the grocery within about 10 minutes, and curbside pickup of interesting stuff at Best Buy with no opportunity to browse. Restaurants are drive-thrus. Life is not "lonely" since "lonely" is being alone and depressed over it, but I'm not depressed, so just alone. Missing seeing a lot of people, especially at poker.

      With a vaccine, I'm going to the gym (almost) every day (goal is every day, but not that driven to get it done ), a movie as often as it takes for me to have seen them all for the week, live bar poker at a couple local bars 5 out of 7 nights a week, shopping when I want, eat inside at Cracker Barrel once in a while, and generally having a pleasant life, including having a good time with friends and acquaintances at poker.

      This sucks. I'd take a shot more often than every 3 months if that's what it took. Just get the damned thing done, done soon, and make it available yesterday. Oxford / Astrazenica is planning on having 2 billion, with a 'b', doses pre-manufactured in September, and that's 1/4 of the world's population, so we OUGHT to be able to get it. I figure I should have a little priority because of 73, right behind healthcare workers and police / fire / ambulance people. But anyway, on the firsts day of availability, I intend to be 1st in line. Don't get in my way, it could be hazardous!

      Now to go mow the lawn, and do a rare trip to the gym. Place is huge, not many show up, so I'm fairly safe - generally closest person might be 10 feet. Usually more. But I shouldn't have to worry about it...

      • With a vaccine, I'm going to the gym (almost) every day (goal is every day, but not that driven to get it done ),

        If you're not going to the gym, try P90x. The results are amazing. Might need to start slow, only 15 minutes a day (or less) but you can work up.

      • Restaurants are drive-thrus.

        Which incidentally isn't very helpful to cyclists. Some restaurants (such as Chick-fil-A) have curbside pickup options where I order online and a team member delivers my order to the parking lot. Others (such as the Wendy's near me) confirmed that they have gone drive-thru only and are refusing service to pedestrians and cyclists.

  • by moxrespawn ( 6714000 ) on Sunday June 21, 2020 @10:48AM (#60208878)

    "proved effective and safe with rhesus monkeys during the earliest stage of experimentation."

    Hominid rights now!

    Oh wait, I forgot, secular society is ethically and philosophically incoherent.

    • by Aristos Mazer ( 181252 ) on Sunday June 21, 2020 @11:02AM (#60208912)
      Slight amendment: "Society is ethically and philosophically incoherent."
      Any group of people has widely variant ethics and philosophy. Religious texts do not remove that. You have big schism -- Eastern Orthodox/Roman Catholic/Protestant or Suni/Shiite -- but you also have the smaller breaks (works vs faith, Christians who believe allowing others to choose on abortion, gays who follow Christ, etc). Secular society is nothing special in this regard.
    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Oh wait, I forgot, secular society is ethically and philosophically incoherent.

      Wait... When did that happen?

      • Varies based on when the individual DNA manifestation agreed that a) there's only materialism, b) rhesus monkeys are materially indistinguishable from other hominids, and c) they still have distinct and logically justifiable rights.

        In other words, YMMV.

  • by erice ( 13380 ) on Sunday June 21, 2020 @11:17AM (#60208958) Homepage

    Unless there are two Oxford vaccines, this one did not exactly pass animal trials with flying colours.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gl... [telegraph.co.uk]

    Also reported here but I don't have that link.

    • Even a partially working vaccine is helpful if it weakens the virus to the levels of a nasty cold.

      • It’s weakening it to a nasty regular flu at best. The viral load was the same as unvaccinated. 3 of 5 animals showing a slight reduction is seriousness of complications has a low confidence level at a reductive effect while 5/5 infected is fairly strong evidence there isn’t a high chance of preventing infection. We still don’t know how much it reduces endothelial damage either, on paper it looks like less people will suffer permanent injury as well as maybe saving lives. There are no sho
        • by Hodr ( 219920 )

          That article doesn't say it's weakening and certainly didn't compare it to a "nasty flu". It said that the vaccine caused antibodies to be created (which were ineffective at preventing infection) and that the virus was present in the lung tissues, but that they didn't find pneumonia. Googling seems to indicate that 15% of covid patients that present with symptoms develop secondary infections to include pneumonia. They indicated that 6 monkeys were given the vaccine, so on average only 0.9 would have event

          • It says it reduced the severity of the symptoms that included PRIMARY, not secondary, pneumonia. However, a small sample size is not statistically significant because of the low incidence rate so it’s not clear this claim is true. The small sample is significant to rule out a high percentage chance at preventing infection. It’s stupid to say a POSSIBLE slight reduction in symptoms puts it on equal footing as a cold at this point, a more severe illness like the flu fits better if that’
  • The article mentions phase 1 and now going into phase 3, but no mention of the results of a phase 2...
  • The world will ultimately need more than one vaccine anyway, as demand will soar beyond what any one company could produce.

    Surely this isn't a good reason for needing more than one vaccine? Whatever proves to be the best vaccine should be manufactured by all the capable companies. If someone then comes up with a better one, production should switch.

    Now it might be that some vaccines turn out to be more effective than others in differing situations, and vice versa - now that's a good reason to need more than one.

  • Immunity (Score:2, Interesting)

    We don't know yet how the immunity to that virus works. For another family of coronaviruses, the "common cold", it is very short and you can catch several in the same year.

    This small article (behind a paywall) suggest it is very short. Around two months which would render a vaccine moderately useful. But their sample size is small.

    https://www.medscape.com/viewa... [medscape.com]

    A non paywalled press article discussing it:

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90... [fastcompany.com]

"Yes, and I feel bad about rendering their useless carci into dogfood..." -- Badger comics

Working...