LONDON (AP) – The UK Health Commissioner has hailed a new study suggesting a single dose of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine provides a high level of protection for 12 weeks, saying it supports the government’s controversial strategy to delay the second shot. it can quickly protect more people with a first dose.
Britain’s decision has been criticized by other European countries as risky, but Health Minister Matt Hancock said on Wednesday that the study “supports the strategy we have taken and shows the world that the Oxford vaccine is working effectively.”
Hancock’s comments came after Oxford University published a study showing that the vaccine reduced the transmission of the virus by two-thirds and prevented serious illness.
Mene Pangalos, executive vice president of biopharmaceutical research and development at AstraZeneca, said no patient had experienced severe COVID-19 or required hospitalization three weeks after receiving a first dose, and that efficacy appeared to be increasing up to 12 weeks after the first injection.
“Our data suggests that you want to be as close to 12 weeks as possible” for the second dose, Pangalos said at a news conference.
The study has not yet been peer-reviewed and did not address the dosage of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the other one currently in use in the UK Pfizer recommends giving the injections 21 days apart and has taken the decision of the British government. to extend the time between doses.
But the Oxford study was greeted with excitement by British officials who were under pressure to justify their decision to delay the second dose.
“The reduction in handover and the fact that there are no hospital admissions, the combination of these is very good news. And it categorically supports the strategy we have adopted of having a 12-week interval between doses, ”Hancock told Sky News.
Some countries, including France, have only approved the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in people under the age of 65, saying there isn’t enough evidence to say whether it works in older adults. Belgium has only allowed it for people over 55.
Still, one of the lead researchers on the Oxford vaccine project, Dr. Andrew Pollard, “we expect it to be very effective in older adults,” and said more data should be available in the coming weeks.
Pangalos noted that the European Medicines Agency had approved the vaccine for use in all people over 18 years old.
“How individual countries decide to introduce vaccines is ultimately up to them, based on the vaccine stocks they have,” he said.
Vaccine supply is a sensitive topic in the European Union, and it is unfortunate that AstraZeneca has reduced the number of doses it plans to deliver to the EU in the short term. The company said last month that it plans to reduce initial deliveries within the EU from 80 million doses to 31 million doses due to reduced yields from its plants in Europe.
It has since filed for an additional 9 million doses to the 27-country bloc, whose leaders are criticizing what is seen as slow progress in population inoculation.
Britain has the deadliest coronavirus outbreak in Europe, with more than 108,000 dead, and is in the third national blockage as authorities try to contain a new, more transmissible virus variant first identified in South East England.
Other variants are also a concern. Public health officials in England are going door to door trying to test all adults in eight target groups in an effort to stop a new strain first identified in South Africa from spreading.
So far 105 cases of the variant have been identified in the UK, of which 11 in people unrelated to travel abroad. Scientists say there is no evidence that the South African variety is more serious than the original virus, but it may be more contagious. There are also concerns that current vaccines may be less effective against that variant because it contains a mutation of the virus’s signature spike protein that existing vaccines target.
That’s a concern as the UK is rushing to vaccinate its own population against the virus. Nearly 10 million people have received the first of their two injections, including most of the over-80s and nursing homes.
Pollard said Oxford scientists believe the AstraZeneca vaccine will continue to protect against new variants of COVID-19, although they are still waiting for it.
He said that even if the virus does adapt, “it doesn’t mean we still won’t have protection against serious illness.”
“If we have to update the vaccines, it is actually a relatively simple process. It will only take a matter of months, rather than the tremendous effort everyone put into last year to get the very large-scale trials running, ”he told the BBC.
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