LONDON (AP) – Britain became the first country to authorize an easy-to-use COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, whose developers hope will become the “vaccine for the world”. The approval and a policy change that will accelerate the launch of the vaccine in the UK comes as an increase in infections threatens the swamp of British hospitals.
The Department of Health said it had accepted a recommendation from the Medicines and Medicines Regulatory Agency to authorize the emergency use of the vaccine developed by Oxford University and British doctor AstraZeneca.
“The launch will start on January 4 and will really accelerate in the first few weeks of next year,” British Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News. The UK has bought 100 million doses of vaccine.
AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot told BBC Radio 4 that the company could start transporting the first doses of vaccine on Wednesday or Thursday “and vaccination will start next week and we will reach 1 million – and beyond – a week, very quick”.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK have already received a different vaccine, developed by the American doctor Pfizer and the German company BioNTech.
Soriot said it was “an important day for millions of people in the UK who will have access to this new vaccine. It has proven to be effective, well tolerated, easy to administer and is provided by AstraZeneca without profit. “
Coronavirus vaccines were usually given in two doses, with a first shot followed by a booster about three weeks later.
But in a change of approach, the British government said that with the AstraZeneca vaccine, it will give priority to administering to as many people as possible with a single dose, which is believed to provide a great measure of protection against the virus. It was said that the people at highest risk would receive priority and everyone would receive a second jab within 12 weeks of the first.
The new strategy comes amid growing infections in the UK. The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 exceeded the first peak of the outbreak in the spring, with authorities accusing a new, more transmissible variant of the virus, first identified in south-east England, of the peak.
Dr Andrew Pollard of Oxford University, one of the leaders of the development team, offered hope that the new approved vaccine would help.
“At the moment, there is no evidence that vaccines will not work against the new variant,” Pollard told Radio 4. We cannot be satisfied with this variant or maybe with the future variants. “
Partial results from studies conducted on nearly 24,000 people in the UK, Brazil and South Africa suggest that photo fire is about 70% safe and effective in preventing diseases caused by coronavirus infection.
This is not as good as other vaccine candidates, but Soriot recently told the Sunday Times that he is confident the vaccine will be as effective as its rivals.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is expected to be based in many countries due to its low cost, availability and ease of use. It can be stored in refrigerators rather than in the ultra-cold storage required by other vaccines. The company said it will sell it for $ 2.50 per dose and plans to make up to 3 billion doses by the end of 2021.
“We have a vaccine for the world,” Pollard said.
The researchers say the vaccine is protected against the disease in 62% of those who received two full doses and in 90% of those who were initially given half a dose due to a manufacturing error. However, the second group included only 2,741 people – too few to be conclusive.
There are also questions about how well the vaccine protects the elderly. Only 12% of study participants were over 55 years old and enrolled later, so there was not enough time to see if they developed infections at a lower rate than those who were not given the vaccine.
The researchers were also criticized for lack of information in September, when studies were suspended because a participant suffered a serious illness. AstraZeneca initially declined to provide further details due to patient confidentiality.
Finally, the studies were resumed after the regulators examined the safety data and decided that it was safe to continue. The published partial results do not show hospitalizations or severe diseases among those who received the vaccine. A separate study testing the AstraZeneca vaccine in the United States is also underway.
The vaccine will become the second COVID-19 vaccine used in the UK. On December 2, regulators granted emergency authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
Having another vaccine available means more people can benefit from protection, said Sarah Gilbert, an Oxford scientist involved in the AstraZeneca project. A different approach is needed from one or another Pfizer-BioNTech developed in the United States by Moderna Inc.
The ultra-cold storage that other vaccines need is “very practical” in developing countries, said Dr. Gillies O’Bryan-Tear, president of policy and communications for the UK School of Pharmaceutical Medicine. It means the AstraZeneca “can reach more parts of the world than the Pfizer,” he said.
The UK action is likely to mean that the World Health Organization will soon eliminate the AstraZeneca vaccine for use in a global effort to help poor countries called COVAX. The initiative, led by the WHO and the GAVI vaccine alliance, has provided access to at least 100 million doses of vaccine, with options and other offers to buy more. But none can be distributed until it is lit by the WHO.
The UN Health Agency does not authorize or regulate vaccines per se, but usually evaluates vaccines after they have been approved by an agency such as the UK regulatory authority or the European Medicines Agency. WHO experts conduct their own assessment of whether or not the risks of a vaccine outweigh its benefits and then recommend that vaccines be “pre-qualified” so that they can be purchased by donors for developing countries.
Most of the coronavirus vaccines that will be used in poorer countries will likely be made by the Serum Institute of India, which has been contracted by AstraZeneca to make 1 billion doses. In June, the pharmaceutical company announced that the Serum Institute would produce 400 million doses by the end of 2020, but in early December, only about 50 million doses were manufactured after production was stopped several times.
In addition to the Serum Institute, AstraZeneca also has offers with vaccine manufacturers in Brazil, South Africa and China to produce the vaccine developed by Oxford for use in developing countries.
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Corder reported from The Hague, the Netherlands. AP medical writer Maria Cheng of Toronto and AP correspondent Jill Lawless of London contributed to the reporting.