UK Edition
UK scientists make 'significant breakthrough' in race for coronavirus vaccine
Imperial College London team hope to be testing vaccine on animals as early as next week
The scientist leading the UK's research into a coronavirus vaccine says his team have made a significant breakthrough by reducing a part of the normal development time from "two to three years to just 14 days".
Professor Robin Shattock, head of mucosal infection and immunity at Imperial College London, said the team will now be able to start testing the vaccine on animals as early as next week, with the hope that human studies could take place in the summer.
Speaking to Sky News he said: "Conventional approaches usually take at least two to three years before you even get to the clinic. And we've gone from that sequence to generating a candidate in the laboratory in 14 days.
"And we will have it in animal models by the beginning of next week. We've short-tracked that part. The next phase will be to move that from early animal testing into the first human studies.
"And we think with adequate funding we could do that in a period of a few months."
The UK Government is working to charter a final flight to bring British nationals back from coronavirus-hit Wuhan as Britons in mainland China are urged to get out after the outbreak continued to claim more lives.
The plane is expected to leave in the early hours of Sunday morning local time and will land at RAF Brize Norton, the Foreign Office said - adding that they want to ensure that all British nationals in Hubei province contact their team to register if they want to leave on the flight.
It is understood that 165 Britons and their dependants remain in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, while 108 people have requested assistance to leave as of the early hours of Wednesday.
A total of 94 UK nationals and family members have already been evacuated to Britain from Wuhan on two flights which arrived on Friday and Sunday.
Professor Shattock added: "It's not going to be too late if this becomes a pandemic and if it circulates around the world. We still don't know much about the epidemic itself so it may wane over the summer months if it is like influenza.
"We may see a second wave come through on a global basis and if it comes a vaccine will be really important and would be in place to tackle that."
Britain has pledged £20m to CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, an international agency set up in 2017 to deal with health crises exactly like this one.
And a further £20m has been earmarked for rapid research into coronavirus here in the UK.
The Department of Health said 468 people in the UK have now tested negative for coronavirus, as of Wednesday afternoon.
Of almost 1,500 people who arrived on direct flights from Wuhan in January, all have either left the UK or are now outside the 14-day incubation period for the virus.