KUALA LUMPUR: UK-trained Malaysian surgeon Dr Nur Amalina Che Bakri has been chosen to be part of the United Kingdom's first Covid-19 vaccine trial team.
Dr Nur Amalina announced her involvement in the programme through her personal Twitter account last night.
"The first of the UK vaccine trials has started at the NIHR (National Institute of Health Research) Imperial Clinical Research Facility @imperialcollege led by Dr Katrina Pollock.
"I'm involved in recruiting healthy volunteers and vaccinating them in the next few weeks," her tweet reads.
She further explained that the trial, conducted at Imperial College's research facility, involves one of two candidate vaccines.
"Great effort from Imperial team and very excited to see the outcome," she added.
Dr Nur Amalina also shared @ImperialMed's tweet requesting for voluntary participants.
The UK has set up funds amounting to €22.5 million to speed up Covid-19 vaccine trials done by Imperial.
The research will be led by the college's Department of Medicine's head of Mucosal Infection and Immunity division Professor Robin Shattock, with the funds being used for the coronavirus vaccine research.
UK's Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, who made the announcement regarding the allocation of the special funds, explained that the research carried out by Imperial and Oxford University is the latest effort in dealing with the global pandemic.
Professor Robin Shattock, who tested the vaccine and made early discoveries in work involving animals as early as February, found that the vaccine is capable of antibody neutralisation to combat the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
At present, the team is involved in the creation of the next vaccine and will test if it will react towards humans in the same way it did with animals, and subsequently succeed in protecting us from Covid-19.