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LONDON: Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine produced by AstraZeneca is likely to get regulatory approval from the UK’s independent regulator by the end of this year for a deployment starting in early 2021, according to a UK media report.
The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which was officially tasked by the UK government last month with the authorization process after the vaccine was found to be “safe and effective” against the novel coronavirus in human trials, is expected to license the vaccine in Dec. 28 or 29 after final data was provided on Monday, the Daily Telegraph cited leading government sources.
“The authorization of the MHRA will also give confidence to countries around the world. India has already manufactured more than 50 million AstraZeneca vaccines, ”the newspaper notes.
In India, the vaccine is produced in a partnership with Serum Institute of India.
Health officials in the UK are hopeful that the authorization of the Oxford vaccine will be a game-changer, allowing vaccines to be transported and administered much more easily than the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine which must be stored at very hot temperatures. cold.
The Oxford vaccine can be stored in normal refrigerators, but like the Pfizer vaccine, it also requires two doses – with a three-week interval between the two doses for the Pfizer jabs and a four-week interval for the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine.
The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, AZD1222, took longer to evaluate for regulators because of differences in efficacy rates seen in different groups, ranging from 62 to 90 percent. However, a study published this week suggests that leaving an adequate gap between doses is the most crucial way to boost effectiveness, the journal reports.
Although the first batch of 4 million doses is delivered from the Netherlands and Germany, most of the manufacturing is expected to take place in the UK.
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said an additional 15 million doses of the active ingredients were ready and could be filled into vials within days, the newspaper added.
It is believed that the full order of 100 million doses, in addition to the 40 million doses of Pfizer jabs imported from Belgium, would be enough to vaccinate the whole of the UK.
The state-funded National Health Service (NHS), which is leading the UK’s mass vaccination campaign with the Pfizer vaccine, has drawn up plans for ‘large-scale’ vaccination sites in the stages of football, racetracks and conference centers to start administering jabs from the first week of January. The program will also be extended to retail pharmacies and other general practitioner practices.
News of a second vaccine for the UK comes as the US has cleared its second vaccine for emergency use against the deadly virus – the Modern vaccine – and will soon begin rolling out thousands of doses alongside the Pfizer vaccine.
The UK, meanwhile, has been vaccinating the most at-risk categories of the population with the first of two doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine for more than two weeks now, even as millions more across the country are entered the most difficult Covid-19 lockdown measures from Saturday. due to spike in infection rates.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called an unscheduled meeting of senior ministers on Friday evening to discuss a disturbing new variant of the deadly virus, which is spreading faster across London and the south-east of England.
“We really hope we can prevent anything like this. But the reality is that infection rates have risen a lot in recent weeks,” said Johnson, when asked about the prospect of another full. national lockdown in the new year.
Earlier this week, the UK’s four countries – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – agreed not to reverse a law change allowing up to three households to meet at Christmas with relaxed rules between December 23 and 27 but people are advised to keep their “Christmas bubbles” as small and short as possible.
The latest analysis suggests that the R number, which represents the number of people to whom each infected person transmits the virus, has once again surpassed the dreaded level of one.
The UK recorded another 28,507 cases on Friday, as well as 489 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test, bringing the country’s death toll to 66,541.
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