A million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine being developed by British scientists are already being manufactured and will be available by September, even before trials prove whether the shot is effective, the team said Friday.

The Oxford University team’s experimental product — called “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19” — is a type known as a recombination viral vector vaccine and is one of at least 70 potential virus vaccines under development by biotech and research teams around the world.

 

The scientists said in an online briefing they were recruiting volunteers for early stage human trials of their shot, and large-scale production capacity was being put in place “at risk.” This means the shots will be produced in large numbers at risk of being useless if trials show they do not work.

“The aim is to have at least a million doses by around about September, when we also hope to have efficacy trial results,” Adrian Hill, a professor and director of the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, told reporters. He said three of the manufacturing partners were in Britain, two in Europe, one in India and one in China.