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Oxford Vaccine: The Hope for a Cure to COVID-19
Oxford Vaccine: The Hope for a Cure to COVID-19
Written By: Pimtawan Jatupornpakdee
The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has startled the world, and researchers are in search of a vaccine that could cure this virus. The Oxford vaccine stands out amongst all other candidates. The researchers call this vaccine ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, but to the general public, it is referred to as the Oxford vaccine. One of the components of this vaccine is a weakened adenovirus from chimpanzees.
The United Kingdom and Europe collaborated to demonstrate the result of the vaccine. From their experiment, the result demonstrated that the Oxford vaccine can protect rhesus macaques from the coronavirus. Unfortunately, this process has not been peer-reviewed yet. Another study, which also has not been peer-reviewed, shows that pigs have T-cells response and can produce antibodies for SARS-CoV-2. The recent information from The Lancet gives hope to researchers around the world because it indicates that the vaccine is safe in humans and can produce an immune response.
The study includes 1,077 volunteers from five different sites in the United Kingdom. The volunteers were split into two groups. The first group received the Oxford vaccine, while the other received meningitis vaccine, which is the control. The average age of the participants was 35 years old, and the genders were split approximately equally. 90.9 percent of the participants were of Western descent. After the injection, there were side effects from those who were injected with the Oxford vaccine. Although the sign of the side effects were common among the participants, most side effects were generally mild such as fatigue, headache, mild flu, and pain at injection sites. Some participants also received prophylactic acetaminophen, which effectively reduced their symptoms.
The researchers observed the participants and found out that the number of antibodies peaked at around 28 days and continued to grow for 56 days. The booster shot of the Oxford vaccine was given to 10 of the participants. After 56 days, the number of antibodies in those 10 participants was greater than that of the other participants who didn’t receive the booster. The researchers then started to look out for the neutralizing antibodies that could resist the virus in the participants’ bodies. It turned out that most participants had already developed the antibodies. In fact, 62-100 percent of the participants who received one dose of the Oxford vaccine have antibodies.
Surprisingly, antibodies are not the only way for our body to fight the virus. T-cells can also attack the cells that the virus has infected. The researchers can measure this result 7 days after the vaccination. The T-cells response peaked on the 14th day and kept growing for 56 days. However, injecting the booster shot had no effect on T-cell response.
Although the results from the study showed positive signs of encouragement, researchers stated some limitations such as the duration of the study, which was too short, and the participants’ young age and health.
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