AstraZeneca vaccine to be tested on children to test efficacy
Follow UsStory highlights
The study will also judge the safety aspects of the vaccine and its ability to generate good immune responses against the virus in children and young adults.
The Oxford vaccine group has launched a trial to assess the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine on children and young adults aged 6 to 17.
Watch:
According to the group, the study will assess if children can be protected from coronavirus with the new vaccine called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19.
We have a new COVID-19 study open for recruitment. If your child is aged 6-17 years and in good health they may be eligible to participate. Click on the link to find out more. https://t.co/4zbqIEI9LT #OxfordVaccineGroup #OxfordVaccine #Covid19 pic.twitter.com/4IFvVWWbj7
— Oxford Vaccine Group (@OxfordVacGroup) February 13, 2021
The study will also judge the safety aspects of the vaccine and its ability to generate good immune responses against the virus in children and young adults.
Oxford University said that it was now enrolling volunteers from the Thames Valley area for clinical trials on kids. “Participants from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups are particularly welcomed to participate in this study,” the university said.
The World Health Organization(WHO) has granted two versions of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use.
The vaccine produced by SKBio(Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India(SII) has been found to have 63.09 per cent efficacy and is suitable for low-and middle-income countries due to easy storage requirements.
"In the first half of 2021, it is hoped that more than 300 million doses of the vaccine will be made available to 145 countries through COVAX, pending supply and operational challenges", the British drugmaker said.
However, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus while hailing the move, said: "We now have all the pieces in place for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production."
"We continue to call for COVID19 vaccine developers to submit their dossiers to WHO for review at the same time as they submit them to regulators in high-income countries," the WHO chief added.