'First human trail of COVID-19 vaccine shows positive result'

New Delhi: In a much-needed relief, the first human trial of COVID-19 vaccine has been found to safe and it induces rapid immune response in 28 days.

According to a latest study published in science journal The Lancet, the first COVID-19 vaccine to reach phase 1 clinical trial has been found to be safe, well-tolerated, and able to generate an immune response against SARS-CoV-2 in humans.

"The open-label trial in 108 healthy adults demonstrates promising results after 28 days — the final results will be evaluated in six months. Further trials are needed to tell whether the immune response it elicits effectively protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection," the study stated.

"These results represent an important milestone. The trial demonstrates that a single dose of the new adenovirus type 5 vectored COVID-19 (Ad5-nCoV) vaccine produces virus-specific antibodies and T cells in 14 days, making it a potential candidate for further investigation", said Professor Wei Chen from the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology in Beijing, who has authored the study.

"However, these results should be interpreted cautiously. The challenges in the development of a COVD-19 vaccine are unprecedented, and the ability to trigger these immune responses do not necessarily indicate that the vaccine will protect humans from COVID-19," he said, adding that this result shows a promising vision for the development of COVID-19 vaccines, but we are still a long way from making this vaccine available to all.

"The study found that pre-existing Ad5 immunity could slow down the rapid immune responses to COVID-19 and also lower the peaking level of the responses. Moreover, high pre-existing Ad5 immunity may also have a negative impact on the persistence of the vaccine-elicited immune responses", said Professor Feng-Cai Zhu from Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China, who led the study.