London One of the strongest weapons against the alarming number of new ones coronavirus variants in the United States and worldwide may be a vaccine that the FDA has not yet approved.
Earlier this month, the World Health Organization gave the green light for the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine internationally, and it is already being distributed in countries around the world to help combat COVID-19. But AstraZeneca is waiting for the results of clinical trials in America, expected to be completed in the coming weeks, before filing with the FDA.
Meanwhile, backed by the fact that their vaccine is relatively easy to update, scientists at the British University of Oxford are adapting it in a preemptive strike to prevent new coronavirus variants, including the one first discovered in South Africa, emerge.
“Plug and play”
Lead designer Professor Sarah Gilbert told CBS News that her team has been adapting their vaccine to address new variants of the coronavirus for months and expects to have a new version ready in the fall.
The ability to turn on a dime is thanks to the “plug and play” platform used in the original Oxford vaccine, Gilbert said.
“You decide which antigen to use from the virus you want to make a vaccine against, what version of it, and then you just put it in and make your vaccine,” she said.
She also stressed that because Oxford has its own bio-factory on campus, adjustments can be made quickly.
“We’ve established our pipeline,” she said. ‘We are making the first seed from the stock of the vaccine in the production facility in Oxford. That’s just a few minutes from here on campus. ‘
Gilbert said a modified vaccine – to include not only the South African variety, but a number of worrying ones – could be rolled out in the United States within months.
“Amazing” impact
Even before the modification, Oxford scientists say their vaccine is very effective in tackling the runaway variant first discovered in the UK. Preliminary field data shows that hospital admissions were limited at 94%, and even outperformed the Pfizer vaccine.
“We have seen the first widespread use of a vaccine in an environment where a new variant has emerged,” Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told CBS News. “The vaccine works against that variant. That’s amazing.”
Part of the reason for that success is the 12-week gap between shots in the UK, rather than the four-week program currently standard in the US, Pollard said.
“If you give that vaccine to many, many more people as the first dose, it will end hospitalization and deaths immediately, while if you give two doses close together, you will selfishly give those two doses to half the number of people,” that rollout and reduce population protection, ”Pollard said.
With more than 500,000 dead in the US, and new variants keep popping up, the need to roll out more images faster has never been greater.