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The British could get the Pfizer vaccine before the Americans as the regulator prepares to make a quick decision and the NHS prepares its staff for a December 1 deployment.
The British watchdog will soon open its formal assessment of the Covid-19 jab produced by US drug giant Pfizer Inc. and German biotechnology company BionNTech SE.
A government source told the Telegraph last night that, “ the best case ”, the regulator will give the green light to the vaccine in less than a week and the NHS has been asked to prepare to administer the vaccine to ‘here early next month.
Meanwhile, the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is not due to meet until December 10 – but it could render its decision in less than 24 hours.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui, head of the Warp Speed Donald Trump operation, said yesterday that the vaccinations could begin “ a day or two after the approval, on 11 or 12 ”.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during a virtual press conference inside 10 Downing Street in central London on October 20, 2020
The UK government has stressed that the regulatory process led by the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is independent and will take all the time necessary.
“Huge planning has taken place to ensure our health department is ready to deploy a COVID-19 vaccine,” a spokesperson said last night.
The MHRA, an executive agency of the Ministry of Health, was tasked with assessing the suitability of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine last week.
Britain has ordered 40 million doses and expects to have 10 million doses, enough to protect 5 million people, available by the end of the year if regulators approve.
Matt Hancock said he was becoming “more and more confident” that life would be closer to normal in the spring.
The Health Secretary said last week: ‘If the regulator approves a vaccine, we will be ready to start vaccination next month with the bulk of the rollout in the new year.
“We are heading in the right direction but there is still a long way to go.
Mr Hancock stressed the independence of the MHRA and said he did not want to “infringe on their independence”.
Asked about the assurances given by the regulator on the duration of his process, he said: “ This is absolutely a matter for them to know how long it takes, I will not pre-judge that. ”
Donald Trump at the White House earlier this month
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, Deputy Chief Medical Officer of England, said the assessment “will take place at the speed of science and we have to let them and trust them to continue.”
If approved, the first to receive the vaccine would be elderly people in nursing homes and workers in nursing homes, according to the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization.
Next are people aged 80 and over and health and social service workers.
Leaked NHS documents, viewed by the Health Service Journal (HSJ), suggest that all adults in England – of any age – could start being vaccinated against Covid-19 before the end of January if supplies allow it.
As part of the plan, every adult who wants a vaccine could be vaccinated in early April, the HSJ said.
Mr Hancock said that the military and the NHS were ready to deploy a vaccine across the UK from early December and would work “ seven days a week ” to do so.
It will be dispensed in nursing homes, general practitioners and pharmacists, as well as in “essential” vaccination centers installed in places such as sports halls.
The Health Secretary said the UK would be among the first countries in the world to be able to do so.
In addition to its agreement on 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the government has secured an “initial agreement” for 5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and 100 million additional doses of the Oxford vaccine.
All vaccines go through rigorous testing and are overseen by experienced regulators.
Moderna said its available safety data did not indicate any significant safety concerns.
Their trials found that the vaccine was generally safe and well tolerated, and that the majority of adverse events were mild or moderate in severity.
The Pfizer jab is known as a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine.
Conventional vaccines are produced using weakened forms of the virus, but mRNAs only use the genetic code of the virus.
They work by instructing the body’s cells to create antigens, which are recognized by the immune system and prepare it to fight the coronavirus.
Vials of the coronavirus vaccine are seen in a promotional photo for the Pfizer jab
Some believe that mRNA vaccines are safer for the patient because they do not depend on any part of the virus that is injected into the body.
The Pfizer vaccine has been tested on 43,500 people in six countries and no safety concerns have been raised.
With the vaccine Oxford / AstraZeneca – known to ChAdOx1 Sxy-2019 – no serious adverse events to health related to the vaccine were observed in the trial participants.
There are more than 200 vaccine candidates against the coronavirus being tested around the world.
About 12 of them are in the final stages of testing, but Pfizer is the first to report results.
Other potential vaccines in phase three trials include one from biotech company Novavax.
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