Forbes The University of Oxford announcedThursday that it had launched human trials for a vaccine to protect against the deadly Nipah virus, offering early hope against the dangerous pathogen that experts believe could seed a new pandemic, has no approved vaccines or treatments and kills as many as three in four of the people it infects.
The first participants in the clinical trial received doses of the vaccine over the last week, Oxford said in a statement.
The experimental shot is being developed by the university’s Pandemic Sciences Institute and uses the same viral vector technology as the Covid-19 vaccine it successfully developed with pharma giant AstraZeneca.
The early-stage trial will assess the vaccine’s safety and immune response in 51 people aged between 18 and 55, the statement said.
It is expected to run for 18 months with further trials expected in a Nipah-affected country.
Brian Angus, the trial’s lead investigator and professor of infectious diseases at Oxford, said the trial is “an important milestone” in tackling Nipah, both by finding a way of preventing local outbreaks and also “helping the world prepare for a future global pandemic.”