IT is humanity’s most pressing need, the delivery of a Covid-19 vaccine, but as numbers soar and we deal with the second wave how close are we really to a cure? And could we even have a vaccine by Christmas?

The World Health Organisation reports that there are more than 100 Covid-19 vaccine candidates under development globally, with a number of these in the human trial phase And every new stage and every pause in a programme is met by an ever-expectant, and near desperate, public with optimism.

The University of Oxford/AstraZeneca and pharma giants Pfizer, in conjunction with BioNTech, are among 11 candidates in the final stage of testing, raising our hopes with their progress.

The Oxford project is encouraged by the progress being made with leader Professor Adrian Hill, suggesting last week that high-risk patients could be given an “emergency use” vaccine, while final trials are still underway, by the end of the year before it is then rolled out for the greater population from early next year.

Professor Hill, founder and director of Oxford University’s Jenner Institute pointed to “billions of doses” being produced at ten factories.

He said: “I’d be very surprised if this thing [the pandemic] isn’t very clearly on the way down by late spring, at least in this country ... we will get to the stage where there is herd immunity through vaccination.”

GP publication Pulse also flagged up encouraging findings regarding two vaccines including one that requires two shots.

This has coincided with reports that the NHS has been put on standby to deliver a vaccine next month and that GPs could be administering a jag to care homes before Christmas.

NHS Lothian has already been mooted as one region where there may be a rollout of a vaccine to staff in December. As of the other Covid vaccine programmes, chief executive Albert Bourla of another of the frontrunners, Pfizer, said that the Project Lightspeed’s work was in the “last mile” and that they expect results within a matter of weeks.

Scotland’s National Clinical Director Jason Leitch, while encouraged by the speed of research, urged caution.

He said: “Remember, no vaccine has passed all of the trials for human use at a big scale yet.

“We’ve got lots of vaccine trials going on, we’ve even got some people being vaccinated and then infected with coronavirus to see what happens, around the UK and around the world.

“We are expecting, with a fair wind, some doses of vaccines this side of Christmas, but not at a population level, not at an immunity level for the whole population, but we’re very hopeful.

“So far – and I don’t want to be misunderstood – so far the vaccine trials are going well.

“Occasionally you see them stop and start again because of the nature of viruses, if somebody gets an illness.”

Chairwoman of the UK Vaccine Taskforce Kate Bingham echoed his views.

She added: “If the first two vaccines, or either of them, show that they are both safe and effective, I think there is a possibility that vaccine rollout will start this side of Christmas, but otherwise I think it’s more realistic to expect it to be early next year.”

But she predicted in The Lancet that the vaccine is “likely to be imperfect”.

Johnson & Johnson and Belgian pharma firm Janssen have been running placebo-controlled trials of a single dose of a vaccine versus placebo in up to 60,000 adults 18 years old and older, including significant representation from those who are over the age of 60.

But those trials were paused a few weeks ago due to an unexplained illness in a vaccine participant.

Addressing the setback, Johnson & Johnson said: “There are many possible factors that could have caused the event. Based on the information gathered to date and the input of independent experts, the company has found no evidence that the vaccine candidate caused the event.”

The Independent Data Safety and Monitoring Board has recommended renewing the programme.

Scotland has been at the forefront of the race for the vaccine. The UK Government is providing up to 100 million doses of its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate for Valneva in Livingston. It is relying on the use of its Ixiaro treatment for Japanese encephalitis, a viral brain disease spread by mosquitoes.

And it “is expected to enter clinical studies by the end of 2020 and to potentially reach regulatory approval in the second half of 2021”.

Reprocell is part of an international consortium working through the Centre for Predictive Drug Discovery in Glasgow for a solution.

While Edinburgh-based Ingenza is collaborating with the University of Oxford and a leading technology innovation centre to apply its expertise in sustainable and cost-effective biomanufacturing to further development of a Covid-19 vaccine.

And out of Aberdeen, NovaBiotics has done a rapid repurposing of its clinical-stage candidate Nylexa for secondary bacterial lung infections associated with Covid-19.

Professor Massimo Palmarini, director of the Centre for Virus Research at Glasgow University added: “The frontrunners of the vaccines that are being developed at this moment are the ones that are based on platforms that have been developed years ago and bits can be exchanged so can be used for different viruses.”

“However the steps to see if it is effective, even if we accelerate it, will still take time.”

Research depends, of course. on feedback from those who have contracted the virus and James Chalmers, professor of respiratory research at the University of Dundee and a consultant at Ninewells Hospital has been encouraged.

He said: “What has really changed over the last six months is that as more trials have been conducted, we have found specific therapies for coronavirus – the most well-known being dexamethasone, the anti-inflammatory,” said Professor Chalmers.

“We have also learnt that many patients can avoid going onto the ventilator by using these tight-fitting masks so that is an alternative that buys times for the lungs to heal up.”