Prayer for COVID-19 Vaccine

Welcome back to Weekly Prayer, a newsletter for today’s rapidly changing world. Today, we’ll be covering a recent development in the COVID-19 vaccine development process and praying for the rapid discovery of a vaccine formula. Let’s dive into it!

News Item: Oxford Vaccine Enters Final Phase of COVID-19 Trials

Oxford University has announced that ChAdOx1, their COVID-19 vaccine produced in collaboration with AstraZeneca, has reached the final phase of trails. The World Health Organization has previously regarded ChAdOx1 as the most advanced vaccine out of the 19 candidates for a COVID 19 vaccine.

The vaccine is based on the use of viral vector technology. Before the pandemic hit, Oxford University was using this technology for a late stage vaccine development for another type coronavirus, MERS. Oxford Scientists used their findings for the development of the MERS vaccine as a starting point to develop the COVID-19 vaccine. For the vaccine, Oxford Scientists inserted the SARS COV-2 spike protein, what foments the spread of the virus in the body, into a weakened and unreproductive adenovirus. This adenovirus acts as the so-called viral vector and creates an immune response when injected into humans.

The first and second phase of trails simultaneously took place in April in Southern England and resulted in a positive immune response from candidates. The third and last phase of trials aims to recruit 50,000 volunteers and is taking place in Brazil and will potentially take place in the United Kingdom, United States and South Africa. The results will be available in November. If the results confirm the effectiveness of the vaccine, Oxford University will submit it for an initial registration with the MHRA (the UK equivalent of the FDA in the US) by the end of the year.

Prayer: Prayer for COVID-19 Vaccine

Today, I propose that we say the following prayer for the development of a COVID-19 vaccine:

“Lord, we know that you as our Creator have chosen to reveal to mankind, partly through the study of the biological and physical sciences, limited insight into the processes and the world you have created. Today, we ask you to enlighten the bright minds working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine with the knowledge of the relevant biological processes they need to know about in order to achieve the desired result of an effective COVID-19 vaccine. We ask this in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

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See you all next week!

Hernán