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Britain has launched Oxford-AstraZeneca injections to its citizens, a vaccine that could provide a solution to the problems of many poorer countries.
FILE: The University of Oxford and drugmaker AstraZeneca have developed a COVID-19 vaccine. Image: AFP
LONDON – Britain on Monday began rolling out the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, a potential game changer in the fight against the disease around the world, while China hastened to inoculate millions with a homegrown prophylactic.
Britain kicked off the new campaign with 530,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, as it struggled to control a severe wave of infections that threatened to overwhelm the public health system and prompted the government to warn that tougher restrictions could be expected.
The vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, is considered by many experts to be a game changer because it does not require very cold temperatures for storage like Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
That could mean greater access to the vaccine for less wealthy parts of the world in the fight against the coronavirus, which has infected nearly 85 million people with more than 1.8 million known deaths.
Brian Pinker, an 82-year-old retired maintenance manager, took the first hit at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital, NHS England said.
“I am very happy to have received the vaccine from Oxford,” he said, adding that it was a “no-brainer” to receive the vaccine.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted that he was “delighted that today we are launching the @UniofOxford / @AstraZeneca vaccine across the UK.”
“It is a vital step in our fight against this pandemic,” he said.
“We can see the way forward in terms of a route to take, we can see how we can get out of this. But we have a difficult period ahead of us,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday.
Britain has already vaccinated about a million people after approving the Pfizer vaccine in early December and expects to inject tens of millions in the next three months, Johnson said in an interview with the BBC.
Vaccines were also underway in Europe, as thousands of people lined up in Beijing to receive vaccinations as Chinese authorities raced to inoculate millions ahead of the mass Lunar New Year travel season in February.
Beijing has already administered about 4.5 million doses of largely untested emergency vaccines this year, mainly to healthcare workers and other state employees posted to overseas jobs, according to authorities.
STUMBLING THE VACCINE ROLL IN THE US
Separately, US officials on Sunday rejected claims by outgoing President Donald Trump that the country’s death toll of more than 350,000 was exaggerated, as they defended the faltering launch of vaccines in the world’s worst-hit nation.
The United States has a known case burden of more than 20 million, and the Trump administration has faced intense criticism for its handling of the pandemic, which has hit the US economy.
It has started giving people the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, but the 4.2 million people vaccinated so far are well below the official predictions of 20 million for the new year.
More than 13 million doses of vaccines have been distributed across the country, but efforts to vaccinate health workers and vulnerable people have been hampered by logistical problems and overloaded hospitals and clinics.
“There have been a couple of failures, that’s understandable,” said leading American expert Anthony Fauci, adding that it was challenging “to try to get a massive vaccine program off the ground and get off on the right foot.”
Worrisome reports have emerged of vaccines not working due to poor organization, lack of healthcare professionals to administer them, or, in an isolated case, sabotage.
Moncef Slaoui, chief adviser to the US government’s military-led vaccination effort, said another alternative to the Moderna vaccine was being explored: administering half doses twice.
“We know it induces an identical immune response,” Slaoui said, adding that officials are in discussions with Moderna and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about the proposal.
INDIAN APPROVALS
India, with the second highest number of known cases in the world, approved on Sunday the emergency use of two Covid-19 vaccines, paving the way for one of the world’s largest inoculation campaigns.
The South Asian giant has set an ambitious goal of inoculating 300 million of its 1.3 billion inhabitants by mid-2021, and gave the green light to the AstraZeneca vaccine and the one developed by local pharmaceutical company Bharat Biotech.
But Indian authorities, like many around the world, must overcome public skepticism about the vaccine, often promoted by social media campaigns and conspiracy theories that do not offer credible evidence.
A recent survey of 18,000 people across India found that 69% were in no rush to get vaccinated.
Israel, however, has claimed the quickest start of vaccines yet, saying on Sunday that two million people, about a fifth of its population, would have received the two required injections by the end of January.
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