London, UK - Recent (CGTN - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Robin Shattock, professor, Department of Infectious Diseases, Imperial College London, walking in lab with reporter
2. Shattock talking to reporter
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Robin Shattock, professor, Department of Infectious Diseases, Imperial College London (starting with shot 2):
"And then we want to move to doing human testing towards the beginning of the summer and that's faster than we've ever gone before. But those first human studies will again be to check that the vaccine is safe in a small number of individuals and induces the right kind of immune response that we would predict that would be protective."
4. Various of researchers doing test
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Robin Shattock, professor, Department of Infectious Diseases, Imperial College London (starting with shot 4/partially overlaid with shot 6):
"We are talking about millions of infections. But you have to remember that influenza, seasonal influenza itself causes hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. Yet we're not getting a daily update on the number of influenza deaths. What's happening at the moment is you're getting the number of fatalities based on those that have severe infection. So, it may look worse than it is ultimately on a percentage basis."
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6. Reporter listening
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7. Various of researcher doing test, bottles
8. Pedestrian walking on street
9. Letter H on fence
10. Entrance to St Mary's Hospital

A team of scientists from Imperial College London have been manufacturing the coronavirus's genetic code and injecting it into animals in an attempt to trigger an immune response that they can then replicate in humans in hopes of finding a vaccine against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

Creating a safe vaccine for a virus is still a long process and researchers around the world are continuously testing and retesting potential cures.

Robin Shattock, a professor from the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Imperial College London, has said his team wants to be doing human tests soon, but has warned that the first batch of tests will be limited.

"And then we want to move to doing human testing towards the beginning of the summer and that's faster than we've ever gone before. But those first human studies will again be to check that the vaccine is safe in a small number of individuals and induces the right kind of immune response that we would predict that would be protective," said Shattock.

He said that international health agencies should take the threat of the virus seriously, but they should not use scare tactics to do so. Shattock cautioned against getting too worked up based on the number of deaths from the coronavirus, pointing out that the world is not reporting daily death counts from other viruses.

"We are talking about millions of infections. But you have to remember that influenza, seasonal influenza itself causes hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. Yet we're not getting a daily update on the number of influenza deaths. What's happening at the moment is you're getting the number of fatalities based on those that have severe infection. So, it may look worse than it is ultimately on a percentage basis," said Shattock.