UK vaccinologist says she is confident a Covid-19 vaccine will be ready by September

BRITISH scientist Professor Sarah Gilbert has expressed optimism that an effective vaccine against coronavirus should be ready by September this year as work on the cure is 80% complete by her team at Oxford University.

Worldwide, 1.72m people have been affected by the dreaded coronavirus, with there being 104,882 deaths in 210 countries. As the pandemic spreads, scientists have been working round the clock looking for a cure, testing existing drugs, combining some and experimenting with numerous herbal remedies.

According to Professor Gilbert, a vaccinologist with Oxford University, all this should yield dividends soon with a vaccine ready by September if everything goes perfectly. She added that she is 80% confident that the vaccine being worked on by her team would be effective but so far it has not been tested because the lockdown has made it difficult as the virus has not spread.

Already, the UK government has said it would fund the manufacture of the vaccine if it works and it would be made available to the public. Professor Gilbert explained that the lockdown in the UK has made it difficult to test a vaccine because the virus is unable to spread enough among the populace.

She added: “I think there’s a high chance that it will work based on other things that we have done with this type of vaccine. It’s not just a hunch and as every week goes by we have more data to look at. I would go for 80 percent, that’s my personal view.

“Nobody can promise it’s going to work. We don’t want to get to later this year and discover we have a highly effective vaccine and we haven’t got any vaccine to use. We don’t think we need facilities built, there are facilities that can be switched over.”