Former Special Assistant to the Prime Minister, Barrister Shah Ali Farhad, has completed his Master of Public Policy (MPP) with 'Merit' from the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government. He shared the news through a post on Friday evening from his verified Facebook page. Earlier, Farhad was awarded the PM Fellowship (2021-22) to fund his studies at Oxford. During his MPP, Farhad was among 60 graduate students competitively selected by the 'Oxford Character Project' for the seven-month long 'Global Leadership Initiative', Oxford's flagship leadership programme. Apart from working at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Barrister Farhad has been involved with Bangladesh Awami League's central sub-committees on publicity and publications, and international affairs for around seven years. Read: Farhad awarded 'Prime Minister's Fellowship' to study at Oxford Before joining the PMO, Farhad worked in various capacities for five years at the Centre for Research and Information (CRI), the Awami League-backed policy think-tank. Barrister Farhad completed his LLM (Human Rights) from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) with distinction and his LLB (Hons) from the University of London. He is a barrister of the Lincoln's Inn, UK and an enrolled Advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Barrister Farhad is a regular face on Bangladeshi TV and online talk shows and writes political op-eds.

The University of Oxford plans to test its COVID-19 vaccine in children for the first time, becoming the latest vaccine developer to assess whether its coronavirus shot is effective in young people.

A South Korean panel of experts has advised that vaccines for the novel coronavirus by AstraZeneca should be administered to people aged 65 or older following further discussion, according to the country's drug safety agency Friday.

The total of confirmed Covid cases worldwide has now surged past 100 million.

The European Medicines Agency said Tuesday that AstraZeneca and Oxford University have submitted an application for their COVID-19 vaccine to be licensed across the European Union.

New results on a possible COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford University and AstraZeneca suggest it is safe and about 70% effective, but questions remain about how well it may help protect those over 55 — a key concern for a vaccine that health officials hope to rely on around the world because of its low cost, availability and ease of use.

Scientists developing COVID-19 vaccines are optimistic that by the end of next year, all people everywhere will have access to safe and effective treatments against a disease which has disrupted the entire planet.

Oxford University announced to resume the trials of coronavirus vaccine candidate, that it is developing with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, after a disruption over the reported effect in a patient. 

Dr Anthony Fauci has warned that the emergency use of authorisation for a potential Covid-19 vaccine could hurt the development of other vaccines.

The Lancet medical journal has published a report of two achievements with encouraging results from Covid-19 phase 1/2 trials at Jenner Institute at Oxford University and another at CanSino Biologics in Wuhan, China.   The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the subsequent Covid-19 pandemic triggered the active development of nearly 200 vaccine candidates, said the report on Monday night.   The results of two early phase vaccine trials are reported, one from investigators at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University (Oxford, UK), with support from AstraZeneca, and the second from investigators supported by CanSino Biologics in Wuhan, China.     Both groups used an adenoviral vector, and both report the vaccine achieving humoral responses to the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein receptor binding domain by day 28 as well as T-cell responses, the Lancet report said.   Both report local and systemic mild adverse events such as fever, fatigue, and injection site pain. In neither trial was a severe adverse event reported, it said.   Andrew Pollard and colleagues report their phase 1/2 randomised trial of one injection of chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored Covid-19 vaccine.   Vaccine formulation at one concentration was tested against a comparator quadrivalent conjugate meningococcal vaccine among 1,077 healthy adults (50 percent male, 90.9 percent white) aged 18–55 years (median 35 years, IQR 28–44), recruited from five centres in the UK and followed up for 28 days.