Human trials for the first potential coronavirus vaccine developed in the southern hemisphere to begin in South Australia
- First potential coronavirus vaccine set to begin human trials in Adelaide
- Australian company Vaxine will use clinical trial unit to test COVAX-19 vaccine
- Research director said COVAX-19 used technology that mirrored previous work
- Results from the clinical trial's first phase will be known within eight weeks
- First patients will be forty volunteers aged between the ages of 18 and 65
The first potential coronavirus vaccine developed in the southern hemisphere is set to begin human trials in Adelaide.
Australian company Vaxine will use a clinical trial unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital to test the COVAX-19 vaccine.
Forty volunteers aged between 18 and 65 will be given two doses three weeks apart and will then have blood tests to measure protective antibody and responses.
Pictured: The first potential coronavirus vaccine to begin human trials - which will use a trial unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital
Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky said COVAX-19 used a type of technology that mirrored previous work on vaccines for the SARS coronavirus.
He said that was believed to provide the most certain and reliable results.
Vaxine business manager Sarah Pringle said the company had been working for 18 years to develop a successful pandemic vaccine platform.
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'Pandemic research is not something you can turn on and off like a tap,' she said.
'People should not think that short-term funds no matter how large can deliver instant pandemic solutions after a crisis hits; it will always be too little, too late.'
Results from the trial's first phase - which will investigate if the potential vaccine can create COVID-19-inducing antibodies - will be available in eight weeks.
Pictured: Members of the public line up outside a walk in COVID testing clinic in Brunswick, Melbourne on Thursday. Forty volunteers aged between 18 and 65 will be given two doses three weeks apart during the trials
Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky (pictured) said COVAX-19 used a type of technology that mirrored previous work on vaccines for the SARS coronavirus
A woman gets a COVID-19 test at a testing site in Melbourne on Thursday as the world awaits a coronavirus vaccine
The trials would then move onto human testing in older people and if successful again, the drug would be put up for Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approval.
Professor Petrovsky said in all it could take six months to develop a readily available vaccine.
Work on the vaccine began in January in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.
Last month, it emerged the world could know within weeks if a coronavirus vaccine is imminent.
Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the first results from the clinical trials of several different candidates should be known by late July.
'That would be a good time for us to tell whether any of the candidate molecules are looking promising,' he told reporters in Canberra on Monday.
The government is examining Australia's capacity to manufacture vaccines if a working one is found.
At the moment, it would be able to make some of those being trialled but not others, Professor Murphy said on Monday.
