The University of Oxford announced on Sunday that it had started injecting volunteers with a vaccine developed with AstraZeneca against the beta-type (“South African”) coronavirus, as part of a clinical trial to measure its effectiveness.

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He said in a statement that around 2,250 participants will be recruited from the UK, South Africa, Brazil and Poland as part of the second and third phases of these human clinical trials.

The candidate vaccine uses the same so-called “viral vector” (adenovirus) technology currently used against COVID-19 around the world.

Professor Andrew Pollard, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, commented: “It is important to test the booster doses of existing vaccines and vaccines against new variants to ensure that we are as well prepared as possible to maintain a healthy dose. a step ahead of the coronavirus pandemic, if their use proves necessary. “

Provisional data from those clinical trials are expected later this year and will be submitted to regulators for assessment as part of an expedited process, the statement said.

In May, the UK government began clinical trials, billed as a world first, of the immune response of a third dose of a COVID vaccine to a booster campaign in the UK, where there has been an outbreak of ‘infections due to a delta (“Indian”) variant.