LONDON (AP) – The head of the drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, which is developing a coronavirus vaccine that should be approved by the British authorities this week, said on Sunday that researchers believe the shot will be effective against a new variant of the virus that will cause a rapid increase in infections in the UK.
AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot told the Sunday Times that researchers developing the vaccine had discovered a “winning formula” that made the jab as effective as rival candidates.
Some have expressed concern that the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed in conjunction with Oxford University, may not be as good as the one produced by Pfizer, which is already distributed in the UK and other countries. Partial results suggest that AstraZeneca shot is approximately 70% effective in preventing disease caused by coronavirus infection, compared to the 95% efficacy reported by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.
“We think we’ve discovered the winning formula and how to get the effectiveness that, after two doses, is up there with everyone else,” Soriot said. “I can’t tell you more because we’ll publish at some point.”
The UK government says its drug regulator is reviewing final data from AstraZeneca’s phase three clinical trials. The Times and others have reported that the green light could come by Thursday, and vaccines may begin to be released to the UK public in the first week of January.
Asked about the effectiveness of the vaccine against the new variant of coronavirus in the UK, Soriot said: “So far, we believe that the vaccine should remain effective. But we can’t be sure, so we’ll test that. ”
British authorities have blamed the new variant of the virus for increasing the rate of infections across the country. They said the variant is much more transmissible, but there is no evidence that stress makes people sick.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has sounded an urgent alarm over the pre-Christmas version, saying the new version of the virus is spreading rapidly and that travel and assembly plans must be canceled for millions. Since then, authorities have put the country’s growing areas – which affect about 24 million people, or 43% of the population – at the strictest level of restrictions.
Many countries have quickly banned travel from the UK, but since then cases of the new variant have been reported in a dozen locations around the world.
Public health officials said on December 24 that more than 600,000 people had received the first of two doses of Pfizer vaccine.