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London – One of the most powerful weapons against the disturbing number of new ones coronavirus variants in the United States and around the world may be a vaccine that the FDA has not yet approved.
Earlier this month, the World Health Organization gave the green light to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to be used internationally, and it is already being distributed in countries around the world to help fight COVID-19. But AstraZeneca is awaiting the results of clinical trials in America, which it expects to conclude in the coming weeks, before filing its request with the FDA.
Meanwhile, supported by the fact that their vaccine is relatively easy to update, scientists at the UK University of Oxford are modifying it as part of a preemptive attack to prevent new variants of the coronavirus, including the variant. discovered for the first time in South Africa, to establish itself.
“Connect and use”
Chief designer Professor Sarah Gilbert told CBS News her team had already been working for months on modifying their vaccine to combat newer variants of the coronavirus and expect to have a new version ready for it. autumn.
The ability to ignite a penny is due to the “plug and play” platform used in the original Oxford vaccine, Gilbert said.
“You decide which antigen you want to use from the virus you want to make a vaccine against, exactly which version of it, and then you just put it in and make your vaccine,” she says.
She also pointed out that since Oxford has its own bioproduction facility on campus, changes can be expedited.
“We have established our pipeline,” she says. “We’re making the first stock seed of the vaccine at the Oxford manufacturing plant. It’s just minutes from here on campus.”
Gilbert said a modified vaccine – to take not only the South African variant, but a number of worrisome variants – could be rolled out in the United States within months.
“Amazing” impact
Even before the change, scientists at Oxford say their vaccine is very effective in combating the fugitive variant first discovered in the UK. Preliminary actual data shows it reduced hospitalizations by 94%, even outperforming the Pfizer vaccine.
“We saw the first widespread use of a vaccine in a context where a new variant has emerged,” Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, told CBS News. “The vaccine has an impact against this variant. It’s amazing.”
Part of the reason for this success is the 12-week gap between shots in the UK, rather than the currently standard four-week schedule in the US, Pollard said.
“If you give this vaccine to many, many more people as the first dose, it immediately ends hospitalization and death, while if you give two doses close together, you will selfishly give those two doses at half the number of people. people, which will slow down this deployment and protect the public, ”Pollard said.
With over 500,000 dead in the United States, and new variants continue to emerge, the need to deploy more plans faster has never been greater.
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