Just days after AstraZeneca resumed trials of the COVID-19 vaccine, the University of Oxford has said that the unexplained illness observed in a volunteer of the last stage clinical trials may not have been related to its coronavirus vaccine. The information was shared by Oxford University in a document related to participant information.
According to a report by Reuters, the University of Oxford in the document said that safety reviews were conducted when volunteers in the trials for testing the vaccine candidate, called AZD1222 or ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, developed unexplained neurological symptoms including changed sensation or limb weakness, and the study was paused while a safety review took place.
“After independent review, these illnesses were either considered unlikely to be associated with the vaccine or there was insufficient evidence to say for certain that the illnesses were or were not related to the vaccine,” the document said.
AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford said that clinical trials for their coronavirus vaccine have resumed in the UK after the Medicines Health Regulatory Authority's (MHRA) confirmed that the trials were safe. The human trials resumed days after a pause had been announced in the trials after an adverse reaction in one of the participants. Oxford and AstraZeneca are among the front-runners in the quest to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus.
