Oxford began to study the combination of two vacuum cleaners …

Scientists at the University of Oxford on Thursday announced the launch of study to determine if combining two doses of different coronavirus vaccines in the same patient is still effective against the disease.

“If we find that these vaccines can be used interchangeably, this will greatly increase the flexibility of your layoutProfessor Matthew Snape, researcher at the University of Oxford and responsible for the trial, said in a statement.

The study will have the participation of 820 volunteers over 50 years and analyze the combination of the two vaccines that have been used so far in the UK vaccination campaign: that of Pfizer / BioNTech and that of AstraZeneca / Oxford.

As well the effectiveness of the protection will be evaluated according to the spacing between the two injections, testing a four-week interval, close to that initially recommended, and the 12-week interval chosen by the British authorities to reach more people.

The United Kingdom is the European country hardest hit by the pandemic with more than 109,000 dead. This forced Boris Johnson’s government to adopt a new isolation in early January and adopt a different vaccination strategy: vaccinate more people in less time and increase the interval between the first and the second dose.

England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam stressed the value of “having data that can support a more flexible immunization schedule”, especially given “supply constraints”.

“It is even possible that by combining the vaccines, the immune response will be better, with higher levels of antibodies lasting longer.”, he claimed.

This week, a study was published in “Preprints with The Lancet” – it is not peer reviewed – showing that after the first dose of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine a sustained efficiency of 76% can be achieved for three months and that “after the second dose the vaccine is 82.4 percent effective if the interval is 90 days”.

The UK was the first Western country to launch the vaccination campaign and has already vaccinated more than 10 million of its 66 million people. The UK authorities’ target is to reach 15 million people by mid-February, including all over 70s, healthcare workers and patients in the at-risk population.