A South Australian COVID-19 vaccine trial has cleared Phase 1.

South Australian company Vaxine is to begin Phase 2 trials of its COVID-19 vaccine after the vaccine was found to be safe and generate an immune response in Phase 1 trials.

The initial trials were led by Professor Nikolai Petrovsky from Flinders University. Reports say they were successful, but the company is yet to release any data or peer-reviewed research on the trials.

Dr Paul Griffin - Director of Infectious Diseases at Mater Health Services and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland – says it is encouraging, albeit small progress.

“Any COVID-19 vaccine that enters clinical trials, much less progresses through any of the significant clinical trial milestones, is a great achievement, both for that vaccine and for COVID-19 vaccine development generally,” Dr Griffin said.

“A word of caution, however, in that no data has been shared, much less published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is really what is required to substantiate any claims of safety or efficacy.

“This should hopefully follow in the near future. It was also a rather small Phase 1 study and, when talking about immune responses, only an antibody response has thus far been mentioned.

“Only systemic side-effects have been mentioned as not being present. So, I would also eagerly await information relating to other immunological studies as well as local side-effect rates.

“Overall, however, it is great to hear that the small Phase 1 trial of this vaccine has generated sufficient data to approve it being utilised in further studies.”