LONDON: The University of Oxford vaccine against Covid-19 is manufactured by AstraZeneca is likely to receive approval from the UK’s independent regulator by the end of this year, so that the rollout can begin in early 2021, according to a report in British media.
The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which was formally entrusted by the UK government with the approval process last month after the shot proved ‘safe and effective’ against the novel coronavirus in human trials, is expected to approve the vaccine by December 28 or 29, after the final data was provided Monday, ‘The Daily Telegraph’ quoted sources from senior government leaders.
“Authorization by the MHRA also gives confidence to countries around the world. India has already produced more than 50 million AstraZeneca vaccines, ”the newspaper notes.
In India, the vaccine is being produced as part of a partnership with the Serum Institute of India.
Health officials in the UK hope that the approval of the Oxford shot will prove to be a “game changer”, making vaccines much easier to transport and administer compared to the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, which must be stored at very low temperatures.
The Oxford vaccine can be kept in normal refrigerators, but just like the Pfizer vaccine, it also requires two doses – with a three-week interval between the two doses for the Pfizer shots and a four-week interval for the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine.
The Oxford / AstraZeneca, AZD1222, vaccine takes longer to review by regulators because of differences in the efficacy rates found in different groups, ranging from 62 to 90 percent. However, a study released this week suggests that leaving a sufficient gap between doses is the most crucial way to increase efficacy, the paper reports.
Although the first batch of 4 million doses will be delivered from the Netherlands and Germany, most of the production will be in the UK.
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has said an additional 15 million doses of active ingredients are ready and can be bottled in a few days, the newspaper report adds.
The full order of 100 million doses, in addition to 40 million doses of the Pfizer jabs imported from Belgium, is believed to be enough to vaccinate the entire UK.
The state-funded National Health Service (NHS), which is leading the UK’s massive vaccination campaign with the Pfizer vaccine, has drawn up plans for ‘large-scale’ vaccination sites, in football stadiums, race tracks and conference centers to begin administering stimuli from the first week of January. The program will also be extended to high-street pharmacies and other GP practices.
News of a second vaccine for the UK comes as the US releases its second vaccine for emergency use against the deadly virus – the Modern vaccine – and will soon begin rolling out thousands of doses in addition to the Pfizer vaccine.
The UK, meanwhile, has been vaccinating the highest-risk categories of the population with the first of two doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for over two weeks, even as millions more across the country took the toughest Covid-19 lockdown measures from Saturday. due to a spike in infection rates.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson convened an unscheduled meeting of senior ministers on Friday evening to hold talks on a worrying new strain of the deadly virus, which is spreading faster across London and the South East of England.
“We very much hope we can avoid such a thing. But the reality is that the number of infections has skyrocketed in recent weeks,” Johnson said when asked about the prospect of another complete nationwide lockdown in the new year.
Earlier in the week, all four nations of the United Kingdom – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – agreed not to reverse a change in law that would allow up to three households to get together during Christmas with relaxed rules between 23 and 27 December, but people are advised to keep their “Christmas bells” as small and short as possible.
The latest analysis suggests that the R number, which indicates how many people each infected person transmits the virus to, has risen above the dreaded number of one again.
On Friday, the UK recorded a further 28,507 cases, along with 489 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test, bringing the country’s death toll to 66,541.