LONDON - The coronavirus vaccine developed at Oxford University works perfectly and builds strong immunity to the virus, according to a study published in the Daily Mail.

The University of Bristol report says research using cells found the vaccine effectively delivers the instructions for the Covid protein, which means a person’s immune system recognises the disease and shrugs it off without them falling ill. It is currently undergoing large-scale safety trials.

The Oxford vaccine, developed in partnership with Astrazeneca, is made by taking a common cold virus from chimpanzees and deleting about 20 per cent of the virus’s instructions.

Scientists then have the space to add in new instructions to make a so-called coronavirus “spike protein” – which the immune system then attacks.

This means it is impossible for the vaccine to replicate or cause disease in humans, but it can still be produced in the laboratory under special conditions, according to the researchers.

The Bristol team found that the vaccine was successfully able to instruct human cells to copy the genetic instructions to create the spike protein.