A NEW hepatitis C vaccine being developed in Oxford has shown promising results.
The treatment being trialled by Oxford University has generated a “strong” immune response against the virus, researchers have said.
It is the first time a vaccine for the virus has reached the clinical stage of trials.
It was found to be safe in 15 volunteers who offered to be injected with it in a first trial, and now its effectiveness is being tested in a second.
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Scientists have injected the vaccine in intravenous drug users in two sites in the USA.
Principal investigator Ellie Barnes, of the Nuffield Department of Medicine, said: “The size and breadth of the immune responses seen in the healthy volunteers are unprecedented in magnitude for a hepatitis C vaccine.”
Hepatitis C can cause liver cirrhosis leading to liver failure and cancer.
The team, with colleagues from Italian biotechnology firm Okairos and Stanford University, published its results in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The study was funded by the Medical Research Council and the European Union, with support from the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford and the National Institute for Health Research Oxford Biomedical Research Centre.
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