The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca could be approved “shortly after” Christmas, according to Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, raising hope for millions of people and pandemic businesses across the country. .
John Bell told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that he expected the British medical regulator to give the green light to the experimental recording jointly made by AstraZeneca AZN.
and Oxford University, “pretty soon”.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has received “multiple sets of data” on the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine candidate, Bell told the BBC, adding he had “no worries that the data will look better than ever.”
“I doubt we’ll make Christmas now, but I would expect it just after Christmas,” Bell said.
Shares in AstraZeneca AZN,
which are up more than 4% so far this year, were 0.57% lower in London on Wednesday.
Read: AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID recording is ‘safe and effective’, full data from the trial shows
Data from AstraZeneca’s late stage studies in the UK and Brazil, published in the medical journal The Lancet on December 9, showed that the candidate vaccine had an efficacy of 62% for subjects who received two full doses, but 90% for a smaller subdose. group received a half dose, then a full dose.
The UK government has ordered 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca and Oxford injection, with 40 million doses available by the end of March 2021.
Approval would help speed up immunizations nationwide as it grapples with a mutated variant of the coronavirus that could be 70% more contagious and believed to be the cause of a recent spike in COVID-19 cases in London and southeast of England.
Read: A new Covid-19 strain is shutting down Europe. What you need to know.
Since Sunday, more than 40 countries have closed their borders to arrivals in the UK to stop the spread of the new species. However, at the end of Tuesday, France reopened its borders with the UK to travelers and truck drivers who prove a negative coronavirus test in the past 72 hours.
AstraZeneca told Reuters on Tuesday that its candidate vaccine should be effective against the new strain of the coronavirus variant and that studies were underway to analyze the impact of the variant.
“AZD1222 (AstraZeneca’s candidate vaccine) contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein, and the genetic code changes observed in this new viral strain do not resemble the structure of the spike protein change, “an AstraZeneca spokesman told the news agency.
Read: BioNTech boss says more tests are needed to see if vaccine protects against new COVID-19 strain
AstraZeneca’s comments come after the CEO of BioNTech BNTX,
said the German company’s vaccine, which was developed with US partner Pfizer PFE,
needed more testing to determine if the bulkhead could protect against the new variant.
The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is already in use in the US, UK, Canada and several other countries. It was approved by the European Medicines Authority and the European Commission on Tuesday, and deliveries are expected to begin on Saturday. Germany, Austria and Italy are some of the countries that have said they will start vaccinations from Sunday.