THE world’s first Covid-19 vaccine study that will research alternating doses and intervals of already approved vaccines begins in Oxford today.

The ‘urgent’ public health study is set to determine the effects of using a different vaccine for the second dose to the first dose, in addition to two varying intervals between them.

It is backed by £7 million of Government funding to recruit more than 800 participants across eight UK sites, including 100 in Oxford.

The volunteers, who are aged 50 and above, are expected to take part in the study – referred to as the Covid-19 Heterologous Prime Boost study, or 'Com-Cov' – across eight sites in England.

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It is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and it will be run at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine based at the Churchill Hospital.

The study will look to gather more evidence on different intervals between the first and second dose for both a mixed-vaccine regimen and for when the same vaccine is used for both doses, as is currently implemented for the national virus vaccination programme.

Professor Matthew Snape

Professor Matthew Snape

The clinical study will monitor the impact of the different dosing regimens on patients' immune responses, and whether this can be a viable route to increase the flexibility of the UK’s vaccination programme.

Patients will be recruited over the course of February via the NHS Covid-19 Vaccine Research Registry, with vaccinations expected to start towards the middle of the month and initial results to be published over the summer period.

The study will last for 13 months, and members of the public can volunteer to be part in the study.

It will have eight different arms, testing eight different combinations and interval doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech.

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Matthew Snape, associate professor in paediatrics and vaccinology at the University of Oxford, revealed what he was hoping to achieve with the study.

He said: "This is a tremendously exciting study that will provide information vital to the roll out of vaccines in the UK and globally.

"If we do show that these vaccines can be used interchangeably in the same schedule this will greatly increase the flexibility of vaccine delivery, and could provide clues as to how to increase the breadth of protection against new virus strains."

If the study shows promising results, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) would formally assess the safety and efficacy of any new vaccination regimen before it is rolled out.

Professor Snape also called on those aged 50 and above who have not yet received a Covid-19 vaccine to visit the www.comcovstudy.org.uk website to find out more about the study.

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