COVID-19 Updates (August 29): Vietnam vaccine to be researched on human in September
	China’s SinoVac Vaccine aims to beat Covid the Old-Fashioned Way
	Russia's COVID-19 vaccines: Moscow citizens are urged to take part in trial test

Man who lost 7 relatives to COVID-19 becomes the first American to trial Oxford vaccine (Photo: CBS News)

Oxford University researchers have started the final round of testing for their COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. — a significant leading step in the race to beat the coronavirus pandemic, CBS cited.

Oxford researchers, in partnership with AstraZeneca, started dosing the first volunteers in Florida on Friday, and 31 Americans received either the vaccine or placebo throughout the weekend, as part of the clinical trial.

During the third and final phase, the vaccine is tested for safety and how effective it is at reducing or blocking COVID-19 symptoms. The Food and Drug Administration would then consider approving it for public use.

Jacob Serrano, 23 years old, is among 31 volunteers for a Florida trial of a potential vaccine developed by Oxford and AstraZeneca — and the first to try the drug when the final phase of US trials got underway on Friday, according to the New York Post.

Answering the CBS interview, Serrano said that the vaccine trial is a mission he wanted to fulfill after losing cousins, aunts, and uncles, a total of seven family members to the coronavirus.

“Each person that’s taken away from your life, it’s a big shift,” Serrano said.

The trial took place in Atlantis last Friday. (Photo: CBS News)

The 23-year-old didn’t know what to expect when he arrived to do the study inside JEM Research Institute near JFK Medical Center Main Campus in Atlantis last Friday. He's confident he was injected with the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine and not the placebo. He knew of the risks, but Serrano says it’s his way of being a part of the solution to save lives, no matter what it takes.

AstraZeneca researchers tested tens of thousands of volunteers overseas in places like the U.K. and South Africa, and are planning the same trials in Russia and Japan.

Dr. Larry Bush, the principal investigator to this Palm Beach County site, says he is hopeful.

“In phase one in two trials, the vaccine has been proven that not only do you get robust neutralizing antibodies to fight the coronavirus, you get a t-cell response, another arm of the immune system to fight off the cells that do become infected. That's crucial in treating infections,” Dr. Bush said.

The pharmaceutical company is expecting to have the trial results from this last stage later this year. AstraZeneca claims to have the capability of manufacturing two billion doses by the summer of 2021. The U.S. has reportedly already ordered 300 million doses.

COVID-19 vaccine update: U.S. says not to join WHO-linked effort for coronavirus vaccine The White House has opted out of the Covax project, preferring a go-it-alone approach that worries public health experts when critics say move to go ...

Top Russian and Chinese COVID-19 vaccines prove potential shortcomings High-profile COVID-19 vaccines developed in Russia and China share possible effectiveness limitations as they based on a common cold virus that many people have been ...

China approves COVID-19 vaccine candidate for emergency use China has approved the use of Sinovac Biotech Ltd’s coronavirus vaccine candidate CoronaVac for emergency cases as part of its program to vaccinate high-risk groups ...