Is this the best 2020 good news for the world? Covid19-busting vaccine breakthrough by Christmas could be on the cards

A vaccine developed by the University of Oxford appears safe and triggers an immune response, according to reports.

The early-stage trial showed the vaccine is “safe, causes few side effects, and induces strong immune responses”, results published in the Lancet said.

Trials involving 1,077 people showed the injection led to them making antibodies and T-cells that can fight coronavirus.

This breakthrough is hugely promising, but it is still too soon to know if this is enough to offer protection and larger trials are under way.

Now, scientists are conducting larger trials of the vaccine.

The vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford, is called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 and is delivered via a chimpanzee virus, called the vaccine vector.

It is made from a genetically engineered virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees, which is then engineered to express the coronavirus spike protein to trigger a strong immune response in the human body.

The UK has ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine.