Oxford University’s potential Covid-19 vaccine will be tested in Brazil as scientists rush to find places with high enough rates of infection to determine whether their inoculations work.
Astrazeneca, the drugmaker partnering with the university, said that finding communities with sufficient virus transmission to prove that a vaccine offered protection was now the toughest challenge in the race to develop a jab.
Pascal Soriot, the company’s chief executive, told The Times: “Probably the biggest issue that we face as vaccine developers is that the disease is declining: we are chasing the disease in many parts of the world.”
If all goes to plan he expects to know by August whether or not the Oxford vaccine works. “But again, I just want to remind everybody,
