The British government has announced it is to invest a further £84 million (€94 million) in the development of a potential vaccine for coronavirus – in spite of a warning from prime minister Boris Johnson on Sunday that the search for a vaccine may never bear fruit.
Business secretary Alok Sharma said the additional funding would support teams at Oxford University and Imperial College London engaged in the global race to find a vaccine that help end the devastating pandemic.
He also said Oxford had signed a global licensing agreement with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca that could see it supply 100 million doses of a vaccine – with 30 million going to the UK – as soon as September if one had been developed by then.
“The UK will be first to get access but we can also ensure that in addition to supporting people here in the UK we’re able to make the vaccine available to developing countries at the lowest possible cost,” he said at the daily Downing Street press briefing.
While the announcement will be seen as a boost to hopes of finding a vaccine, Mr Johnson earlier cautioned that there was still a lot to do and that the search might never be successful. Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said: “There remains a very long way to go, and I must be frank that a vaccine might not come to fruition.”
‘Progressing well’
Mr Sharma said, however, that trials of the Oxford vaccine were “progressing well” with the phase one participants having received their doses in recent days.
“The speed at which Oxford University has designed and organised these complex trials is genuinely unprecedented,” he said.
However if the search for a vaccine was not successful, he said the British government was also looking at other drug treatments and therapeutics, with six drugs having entered initial live clinical trials.
Figures published on Sunday showed that 34,636 people had died in hospitals, care homes and the wider community after testing positive for coronavirus in the UK as of 5pm on Saturday, up by 170 from the day before.
Earlier, senior cabinet minister Michael Gove said the government was on track to meet its target of getting 18,000 contact tracers in the coming week, with 17,200 now recruited. As a result, he said the coronavirus test, track and trace programme – seen as key to further lifting the lockdown restrictions – would be up and running by the end of month.
Reopening schools
Mr Gove also issued a fresh appeal to councils and teaching unions opposed to the government's plans to begin reopening primary schools in England from June 1st to think again. He said measures were being put in place to ensure the safety of children and staff – including limiting class sizes to 15 – although he acknowledged they could not eliminate all risk.
“There is always, always, always in any loosening of these restrictions a risk of people catching the coronavirus,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
“The key thing is that we can make these workplaces safe. You can never eliminate risk, but as we know, it is the case that it’s extremely unlikely that any school is likely to be the source of a Covid outbreak. If for any reason there are risks then we can take steps to mitigate them.”
Mr Gove said there were “big lessons” to be learned from the treatment of care homes during the outbreak amid growing criticism in Britain of the lack of government support for the sector. – PA