The United Kingdom gave the first photos of a Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca Plc and The University of Oxford, in a race against a faster-spread variant of coronavirus, which has led to new traffic restrictions in much of the country.
The first injection was given to an 82-year-old kidney dialysis patient at Oxford University Hospital on Monday morning.
The UK is stepping up its vaccination campaign as coronavirus infections grow across the country, putting the country on the brink of another national blockade. It moved faster in approvals and launches than the US or the European Union, eliminating the AstraZeneca-Oxford product, despite clinical trials involving fewer participants and being complicated by a dosing error. A regulatory decision to extend the dose range of vaccines with two vaccines to 12 weeks has raised additional questions.
Brian Pinker receives the AstraZeneca Plc vaccine and the Covid-19 vaccine from Oxford University in Oxford on January 4.
Photographer: Steve Parsons / PA Wire / Bloomberg
A new strain it is estimated to be up to 70% more communicable and fuels the revival of the pandemic in the UK. warned that there could be tougher restrictions.
UK regulators eliminated the AstraZeneca-Oxford blow last week, marking the first worldwide approval. It is the second injection authorized for emergency use in the UK, after one of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE received approval in early December.
More than a million people in the UK have received injections of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to the Department of Health and Social Welfare.
How the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine works
The viral vector vaccine uses a harmless virus to transport genetic material that triggers an immune response to the coronavirus.
Sources: Oxford University, AstraZeneca, Bloomberg research
The UK ran in front of France, where only about 500 people received initial photos starting this weekend. President Emmanuel Macron was set on fire for the slow pace of development in that country, which was hampered by caution amid high levels of vaccine skepticism. France is behind not only its European neighbors such as Britain and Germany, but also Israel, where more than 12% of the population has already received injections.
Read Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker from Bloomberg
In the UK, more than 500,000 doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford will be available from Monday and will be delivered to hospitals in the first few days. The UK aims to expand the number of vaccination sites to more than 1,000, with another 100 hospitals and 180 GP services coming online this week.
Although the newly approved vaccine has been shown to be less effective than Pfizer-BioNTech in clinical trials, it has several key advantages: it is cheaper and easier to transport and store, requiring only refrigerator temperatures rather than freezing. This makes it crucial for the worldwide promotion of vaccination.
David Nabarro, the World Health Organization’s special envoy for Covid-19, called for caution amid the global rush to vaccinate people.
“I would really like to call on every leader just to slow down a little in a hurry to put the vaccine in as many arms as possible and to put more time into systematic planning of what should be a truly global operation. efficient, ”he said. he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
The NHS administers the first injections under a drug-approved two-shot regimen and Health Product Regulatory Agency. The second can be given up to 12 weeks later, as the UK is trying to maximize the number of vulnerable people receiving the first portion, which provides some protection against infection.
The United Kingdom has also taken a more flexible approach to the two-dose regimen, saying that in certain circumstances – such as when it is not known what vaccine a patient received the first time – the second shot may be given with a different product of a company.
The UK regulator has not yet released full data supporting its decision to allow a longer time between photos, which has drawn opposition from the British Medical Association.
“It is extremely unfair for tens of thousands of our most at-risk patients to try to reschedule their appointments now,” said Richard Vautrey, chairman of the association’s General Practitioners Committee.
– With the assistance of Janice Kew
(Updates with WHO adviser comments starting with paragraph 10)