Author: Rachel Taft
Editor: Alicia White

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19 disease is highly infectious.  If it were free to circulate in the population, millions would be at risk of developing serious or life-threatening complications and health services would be overwhelmed. Vaccination has been seen by many as our way out of this pandemic; vaccine development has been prioritised and production capacity escalated on an unprecedented scale. As of 20th August 2020, the World Health Organisation listed 169 covid-19 vaccines in different stages of development worldwide.

This next article in our covid-19 series provides an overview of vaccine development. We focus on the vaccine produced by the University of Oxford, in collaboration with AstraZeneca, the first vaccine to reach large clinical trials. Initial signs look promising, but success is not guaranteed.  Follow the link below to read the article and find out more.

Read the article

Rachel Taft

Rachel is a clinical specialist in the Health Policy and Clinical Evidence practice. She has been with the company for 14 years and has extensive experience in producing a wide range of evidence-based projects and communicating scientific and medical research to healthcare commissioners and public audiences. Rachel holds a degree in medicine from the University of Wales College of Medicine.

Alicia White

Alicia is the manager of the clinical evidence team in the Health Policy and Clinical Evidence practice. She has conducted projects for health ministries, guideline-development bodies, academic journals, healthcare providers and insurers. Alicia has a first class honours degree in Genetics from the University of Sheffield. She received her doctorate from the University of Manchester and worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at University College London.