How close are we to a curve of 19 Vaccine Research teams in the u. K. Have released promising results from trials but once a back seat is developed how do we make sure that everyone gets it this is inside story. Hello there and welcome to the program im laura kyle the race for a coven 1000 vaccine is gathering pace scientists around the world are competing to develop a safe and effective treatment that may help and the pandemic years of research has been completed in just a few months a team at Oxford University in the u. K. Has released promising results from the trials but whilst those excitement still a long way to go before a vaccine is widely available well bring in our guests in just a moment but 1st this report from paul brennan. Phase one really couldnt have gone much better for the oxford team early positive signs now confirmed in the published research so this is an important milestone on the par but were now moving rapidly forwards to trying to evaluate whether the vaccine actually protects the population. By conducting large scale trials we have 10000 people already vaccinated around the world we still see how the vaccine in older people more is the disease than the thank you so thats the subject of work and to be more public. The oxford vaccine is adapted from a common cold virus found in chimpanzees spike glycoprotein a genetic material from the covert 19 virus was added the hope is the human body will develop immunity to the spike protein stopping the virus from entering cells and preventing infection tests indicate the vaccine produces 2 reactions by producing a defensive antibody response as well as t. Cells which attack the infected cells t. Cell response peaked just 14 days after volunteers were injected antibody response peak to 28 days and side effects were minor mainly just tiredness and headaches treated with paracetamol im hopeful ive got my fingers crossed but to say that im 100 percent confident that well get a vaccine this year or indeed next year is a last just you know an exaggeration were not there yet this is a hugely encouraging result for the team here in oxford but provoking an immune reaction is just the 1st stage in Vaccine Development phase 3 trials already underway in the u. K. South africa and brazil are looking at issues such as optimal dosage and exactly how much protection vaccinated people have when exposed to the actual corona virus 9 in 10 vaccine projects end in failure and there is no guarantee that the early promise of the oxford trials will lead to an effective. Japp but it is a very positive step paul brennan aljazeera oxford the World Health Organization is tracking around 160. 00 possible vaccines against covert 19 most are still in the preterm ical stage being tested on animals at least 24 are in phase one where the potential vaccines given to a handful of people or phase 2 theyre tested on hundreds of people 3 products have reached phase 3 trials this involves vaccinating thousands of people to check for safety and side effects these from the Chinese Companies sign in fact its conducting tests now in brazil and also the university of melbourne and Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in astray and the university of oxford and astra zeneca trials in the u. K. Which we mentioned earlier. Well all Health Organizations as whichever vaccine does succeed it must be available to everyone we want a groundswell of political leaders believing in making a box in order to help you to x. Global public good and this should not be considered as a charity to those who cannot afford the advantage of using fairness or access to also poor countries is the world can really be lifted up lift itself out of this pandemic together which can speed up the economy recovery. Lets bring in our guests now and in lancaster in the u. K. Mohammad moneer lecturer in variety at the university of lancaster in johannesburg henris member of the Strategic Advisory group of experts on the covert 1000. 00 vaccine and in Hong Kong John nicholls clinical professor in pathology at the university of hong kong a very warm welcome to all of you helen you are leading this vaccine trial in south africa how significant is the response that humans have had to the oxford vaccine. Well in fact im not leading it very involved in the vaccine approvals and the science of Vaccine Research going on in south africa but in terms of your question its been very interesting to see that theres been a very positive response from communities to enrolling in the back soon child friendly oxford vaccine there are 3 sites recruiting and that want to enroll 2000 people including 50 People Living with hiv infection and people are really curing up to join the study now thats quite interesting in itself i was wondering how you do get people involved in a trial you know well south africa is perhaps a little bit unique in the sense that weve been grappling with those h. I. B. And tb years major epidemics for many years so we fed up really very experienced Clinical Trials that are very used to doing those vaccine trials and prevention trials interim unities thousands of participants and our Clinical Trials has also have Community Advisory board so one of the ways that we do this is that we talk very strongly to the community about what we want to do my we want to do it and they give us equally strong feedback acceptability or otherwise and how we should do so much of it is Community Awareness but weve had a lot of Media Attention as you can imagine to this because it was the 1st. Country to do vaccine chars in the african region so that in itself has created enormous interest ok done so weve got a development here where we see that developing the question of antibodies in t. Cells how excited are you about this milestone. The i think the brain instinct aspect because were looking at both the. You me as he as well as the humor so im with also been using some on and some antibodies but what it does take chunks very small so we dont have a Clinical Trial on vaccines but so weve just been focusing more on the small animals and especially the hamptons and and so we thought i think getting both the t. Cells as well as the Human Community is is a crucial part. Ok and monitor that there are 160 vaccines in various stages of Development Including i believe one by Lancaster University what stage are you at. Absolutely i mean there are multiple vaccines and multiple technologies that are being deployed in different part of the word and here at the longest tree nearest your approach is slightly different what were doing is to take an avian virus the virus that can cause infection and birds and its pretty harmless in humans so we are using basically the same approach as oxford but a different background that is called newcastle disease virus at at the moment we have demonstrated its great clinical studies and we are doing some animal work including hamster and mice to demonstrate that it induces the immune responses and as it stands so far its pretty encouraging ok helen thomas says its all very encouraging at the moment but we must remember these are very early days at what stage is a vaccine ready to be mass produced. Well i guess is to answer to that one of the things that weve done globally as people have invested in these very Early Vaccine candidates is to in parallel actually say we cant wait till the end to actually identify where were going to manufacture so theres already work going on to identify manufacturing sites existing vaccine manufacturers are going and looking at their capacity to change so thats already been looked at it happened although we dont have yet infected mexico but in terms of the Vaccine Development side of things all of these find exact strip encouraging and we have 3 vaccines where weve got encouraging findings in terms of the immune response what we need to find out for a much larger chance with many thousands of artists that is whether those immune responses are going to turn into either protect you completely from infection or to reduce the severity of disease and those are the advance stage Clinical Trials which in terms of the ox the backseat the moving very quickly but many of these acts in the next few months quite quickly into those that were called local channels and once we have those results and thats when we really would say and if there are favorable thats what we would say we think that weve got a vaccine that is that we can roll out but we would also have to then look and see who we roll it out to because some vaccines for example not work in older people some vaccines wont have meant it most of these acts its werent interested for example and so theyll then be a 2nd look to say how many vaccines do we have that. Limited numbers who would we prioritize and what is the Clinical Trials telling us about how this works absolutely i mean distribution is a very big part of this discussion i do want to come on to that in just a moment in terms of the timeline of course what everybody wants to know is when a vaccine a viable vaccine is going to be produced and these usually tend to take a decade dont theyre the fastest was months which took 4 years is it a tall feasible that a vaccine against covert 19 john could be produced within a year to 18 months. Well and i think its helens as pointed out it can be done but the 70 crucial questions which shes pointed out which we need to look at is basically will be one dose or 2 doses as you need now to vent in hong kong we have a big problem where 18 to 20 percent of our population is over the age of 55. 00 which is an age in which immune senescence can creep in which means that we may they may not amount to proper antibody response when we give them the vaccine and thats a population which is most one in our locality getting this of a disease so i think its them its going to be a big problem about is his point that both. The you know who you give it to and how many doses you give and also realizing that you know we have and will be coming up you know the few months to the winter season where were going to be also coupling with influenza because right now in many influenza studies to be put on the backburner because of coded and so ive been im worried that were going to get were going to get a double whammy in this winter with both influenza as well as resurgence of it and so on the research which weve been doing is actually looking at the the how much influenza can actually influence the replication because so thats actually one of our greatest fears about whats going to happen this coming winter thats anyone will be watching out for every hadnt got a successful trial of people youve got a lot of volunteers but how do you test a vaccine on Vulnerable People how do you test a vaccine on elderly people people with coma abilities. Well you know what is going to be i mean i mentioned that weve got a small subgroup hiv infected and one of the things theres several things we want to check no one is is the vaccine going to be sick. Because immune system is compromised even if people are on antiretrovirals and the 2nd one is it going to work because again youve got an immune system that isnt necessarily as robust as somebody whos not knowing with it so so there you often have a much more rigorous safety money even more rigorous and were seeing in the in the if you like the the the the general population so you look carefully at safety and you look very closely and carefully at the immune response and that would be the same for all older people in your particular as john was saying interested do they amount to that much the same immune response as were seeing in younger populations is that and if they dont is that an indication that this vaccine doesnt work its not quite as good do we know that we wont know that thats the problem the immune response if its there we cant tell you for sure whether it will or it will protect and if it protects in younger people and you see a lesser immune response in older people we still cant say for sure whether that means that we need to give more due. To doses or that we should be giving it a tool because if it was still going to new clinical to it and mommy theres a very strong group isnt there thats calling for what i call challenge trials this is where vaccinated people are deliberately infected with covert 19 this raises up all sorts of ethical questions doesnt it because when theyve happened in the past theyve always had an effective treatment but of course there isnt even effective treatment now for corona virus or what is your idea of your sponsor challenge trials. Yes i mean this idea has been calling just to speed the speed up the whole also sort of. Trial because basically what we do any vaccine that come into the human has to pass through a sort of animal safety trial anyways but this idea is being applied before for the flu vaccine as you said that if there are proper treatments available busy and we understood the disease and all of that in case any severe consequences appear we would be able to tackle that but beside that there is a very. Last motivation really to get into this trial and by all means it should be avoided that is my personal stance on that but of course d there are countries where the disease is getting down and they are. Really really getting into human trials so that they can demonstrate the efficacy in a timely manner but i think there are other elements that youre talking about for example south africa countries are moving into the into the population where the disease is really high so there are alternatives so we can avail though i dont going into the human trial is there any evidence mohamed that in the rush to find a vaccine theres any evidence that safety trials have been by postell sped up. Well the element that i am more worried about is because we are compressing 1015 years time into one year or so and there is unprecedented pressure on 2 Scientific Community for the pharmaceuticals and also for for the for the general public to apply on but one thing is pretty clear that the literature and the other regulatory authorities they have. Hundreds of years of experience is all together to really set up a pipeline how the vaccine need to be assessed before it can roll out into the into the manufacturing and the scaling up so pretty confident that whatever the outcome of the vaccine would be that is depending on the nature of the vaccine but when it comes to the rules it would only be possible when we have really 15 minutes and all of the parameters that are required for the vaccines to be rolled out and that is the only one will be approved ok john do you share that confidence. Im a little bit more skeptical because one of my concerns is that certainly what weve been seeing in the hong kong population of is that you know a lot of when you get the mild disease and they have symptomatic is and thats going to be is that the you know the media says that only about 50 percent of the population thats the Adult Population would actually have the vaccine because i think many people say its a very mild disease watch the vaccine so i think theres going to be that the incentive for those who just see a this is in a very low this disease i should get the banks and then the 2nd is some of the work which weve been looking at is that it may prevent severe disease but it will actually stop replication and the upper asperity track and will actually stop transmission so we may be successful and avoiding a pneumonia but im not too sure whether or not accidents and himself may actually will and how much theyll stop transmission and as been pointed out we really compressing a whats normally a 10 year program into it one to 2 years and then theres always a safety aspect i think weve got memories of what happened with the with the denny vaccine and philippines you had the side effects and so it meant that people then stopped having the measles vaccination so we saw a big outbreak of the measles so its always that big so one of the possible side effects leading to the. General public staying away from it and as such mr point isnt it was if there is a low uptake i mean a recent poll also showed that 50 percent of americans dont want to take a vaccine they simply dont trust in the process they think its too sped up as too politically motivated theyve weve got a vaccine but no ones taking it in as well out of vaccine. So its funny that you say that because it almost feels like theres a global world divide debate going on on the one hand it is that were the arctic and and so there would be considerations for example in the country like the u. S. Where it appears that many people might be reluctant or are hesitant and youve got an older population much less effective so you might not be able to immunize quite a significant proportion now if you only have a partially effective vaccine thats you know that we have mentioned were not anticipating that every backs in and development is going to work but be is going to be 100 percent effective so what if you only have a partially effective vaccine with partial uptake what does that do to Community Transmission is john mentioned i mean do it ill be able to and interrupt transmission what does that do you know in the next winter season when youve got many Vulnerable People who are not going to have antibodies and will not have been immunized youre going to see a resurgence of resurgence but i think the other side of that is that if i think about the African Regional moment is that we are deeply concerned that actually what we we might see is that as sort of mass purchasing is called vaccine nationalization so that mass purchase doing and very restrictive allowance from countries that are manufactured in vaccine want to develop. We saw this with the u. S. Rendez of it which is the therapeutic agent and there will be enormous pressure on governments who have done their research and manufacturing that since theres an enormous pressure on them to say well it has been my population so from the african region we are arguing very very strongly that there needs to be equitable access w. H. O. Is also arguing this incredibly strong many of the global agencies we need equitable access because at the end of 22. 00 and what we anticipate is that we think we might have an effect maxine but were not going to have enough for the whole world. So we are saying how. To divide up in the to access and who should be there parity for that and in fact actually the african union. It has become hyper local in saying there needs to be consideration of this now and so on the one hand weve got people saying we dont want to take a backseat in the global north and on the other hand in the global south were saying we want the vaccine and we demand that we get our fair share so this is these are really really important that weve got to be talking absolutely and distribution in a key part of this argument is that mohamed weve got the u. K. Buying 190000000 doses a different vaccine its hedging its bets its certainly part of the global north as trying to buy up as many samples or doses as it can. Solution think of probably a reason for them to buy different vaccine from different manufacture or really because none of the vaccine is yet at the stage where i would want him caught on and the vaccine and the government have contracted those are based on different technologies so just to ensure that whatever the technology. Available in terms of approval and regular processes they would be in the position to purchase them and to comply in the field but the site out of course defense actually is already spent stages so none of that axiom is really at the stage where we can really count on could there be a global vaccination program. Well that would be an ideal choice to move to move forward because many of the points that weve been touching upon is really to take off and also the distribution and access i mean even the vaccines those have been there for centuries really not really possible to get them to do to every point of the need so therefore if such an initiative is is in place at this moment and we are in the position to set up all International Laws i think that would be ideal and moving forward as it stands now i cant see anything happening. Meeting here in the u. K. Last month large to a quite significant amount of money to really dedicate onto the common 1000. 00 vaccine into the countries that it cannot afford but that is think that probably need to be seen when it comes to execution and tell me gone from the very top of the show being rather excited about this breakthrough at Oxford University to the discussion rather downplaying the significance of these developments throwing up all sorts of questions do you think a vaccine is going to be the thing that stops coronavirus pandemic. No. I dont because i i think all the issues we create raised is that it. I think i think if it is effect it will. As been mentioned before but probably decrease the amount of severe pneumonia in the younger to middle age group but i think that probably is that you will have to be together with what weve been using now for the past 6 months which is the social factors the distancing of the mosques and the Contact Tracing together with. The dedicated hospitals unit to look after the patients im in my personal view is i think the countries are saying we wait for the vaccine we wait for the vaccine is going to be a bit disappointed because it has but we pointed out is a vaccine is not that effective if its not. Because its got tests and maybe a few side effects you know what with some found in hong kong weve had you know the lock down and would come up for you to say one hour watching no we cant keep on with this somewhat restricted isolation so i think that we will have to try and find a medium where balancing out. You know use of a better vaccine in purses antivirals versus preventive measures probably is what we have been also doing for influenza and for other viral diseases for the past. 8090 years its been such an interesting discussion i do wish we had more time to continue it but we will return to the faith issue again im so many times for the name they thank you very much so i guess mohamed when it helen rings and john nichols. And thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website dot com and for further discussion do go to our Facebook Page facebook dot com for slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter but at a. J. Inside story from me laura kyle and the whole team here in doha its by. My. Territorial social and ethnic divisions. France has seen some of the biggest recent protests over black lives matter. Aljazeera world goes to some of its least privileged communities. Where treatment by the police is still a contentious issue. Carries a divided city on aljazeera. Whos to blame for the mishandling of the coronavirus can then make in the United States ill be putting the tough questions to trump surrogate Jack Kingston and former Democratic Party official just oconnell in a special edition of her dad. Not even through wave one as a result of a lack of a leadership here i said to my people slow the testing down please that is criminally negligent and i will sit there and i thought it was hilarious head to head on algis iraq. If you want to help save the world. Sneeze and hero. The usa is always of in fact the people the world people Pay Attention to walk on here and aljazeera is very good at bringing the news to the world. This is aljazeera. Youre watching the aljazeera news our headquarters here in doha coming up in the next 60 minutes the u. K. Government under fire for not doing enough to stop russian interference institution