Over a million doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine possible by September: Researcher

Early estimates of the production a million doses of the University of Oxford's experimental COVID-19 vaccine by September could be an underestimate depending on how quickly late-stage trials can be completed, a researcher said on Monday.

"There might be a million doses manufactured by September: that now seems like a remarkable underestimate, given the scale of what's going on," Adrian Hill of University of Oxford said, referring to the manufacturing capability of partner AstraZeneca.

"Certainly there'll be a million doses around in September. What's less predictable than the manufacturing scale-up is the incidence of disease, so when there'll be an endpoint."

He added it was possible that there would be vaccines available by the end of the year.