The domestic vaccine is so far offering a “good level of protection”.

University of Queensland’s COVID-19 vaccine development is progressing in leaps and bounds, with pre-clinical trials seeing early success.

The vaccine is mostly being tested on hamsters.

Scientists inject the animals with the vaccine and then expose them to the coronavirus.

So far, half had no virus at all detected in their bodies and the other half had “reduced levels” of what would normally be expected.

Keith Chappell from the UQ School of Chemistry said the vaccine was offering “a really good level of protection against virus in the lung”.

“We saw a marked reduction in the severity of the disease in the hamsters,” he said.

“The protection we saw after a single dose was better than we expected.”

The vaccine has also been given to a small group of people, just 120, who are so far showing no adverse symptoms.

Dr Chappel said there were “absolutely no safety concerns with all the participants dosed so far”.

It comes after the Morrison Government announced a “letter of intent” to attain the vaccine being worked on by Oxford scientists, with the hope to develop the magic recipe domestically if and when it is passed on.

Meanwhile, Russia is already rolling out its vaccine without testing it beyond small focus groups to about 1 million people. 

While many scientists warned the country was putting health at risk of increasing Russia’s reputation, Australian Nobel Prize winner Peter Doherty supported the move when weighing relative risk against the reward of curing COVID-19.

Further Perth COVID-19 news on SoPerth.com.au.