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Cheaper, easier to store? Five things to know about the AstraZeneca vaccine and the University of Oxford, eagerly awaited and approved today by the British regulator.
PRACTICAL
Astra Zeneca / Oxford vaccine has the advantage of not being expensive (about 2.50 euros per dose).
It is easy to store: it can be stored in a refrigerator, that is, at temperatures of two to eight degrees Celsius, unlike the “Modern” and “Pfizer” / “Biontech” vaccines, which require very little long-term storage temperatures (minus 20 degrees Celsius for the first, minus 70 – for the second). This facilitates mass vaccination.
EFFECTIVE
According to the CEO of Astra Zeneca, the vaccine is capable of protecting against the new variant of the coronavirus, which caused an explosion of cases in the United Kingdom.
“For now, we believe that the vaccine should continue to be effective against this mutation,” Pascal Sorio told the Sunday Times.
“However, we cannot be sure, so we will investigate.”
Sorio assured that new versions have been prepared just in case, although he expressed his hope that they are not necessary.
“We have to be prepared,” he added.
BRITISH
This vaccine was developed by the British group Astra Zeneca in collaboration with the University of Oxford. This is the second vaccine approved by the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) after Pfizer / Biontech, which came into use in the kingdom on December 8 and already placed in more than 600,000 people.
One of the worst affected European countries with more than 71,000 deaths, the UK has ordered 100 million doses of Astra Zeneca / Oxford, 40 million of which are due to be delivered by the end of March. Immunization with them is expected to begin on January 4.
Astra Zeneca says its plants around the world could produce nearly three billion doses in 2021.
CHIMPANZET
Astra Zeneca / Oxford is a vaccine “with viral vector” – uses another virus (adenovirus isolated from chimpanzees), modified and adapted to act against KOVID-19.
This is the first vaccine, the data on its efficacy were confirmed by a scientific journal – “Lancet”, on December 8. Based on published results, the Astra Zeneca vaccine is safe.
Side effects of the virus are extremely rare so far.
Of a total of 23,754 volunteers who participated in the trials, only one patient who received the vaccine experienced a “serious side effect, possibly related” to the injection, according to The Lancet.
This is a case of a rare neurological disease: transverse myelitis; As a result of the incident in early September, the trials were suspended.
ERROR
When it released interim results in November, the British lab said its vaccine was 70 percent effective against more than 90 percent from Pfizer / Biontech and Moderna.
The effectiveness of the Astra Zeneca / Oxford vaccine reached 90 percent in volunteers who initially received half a dose and then a whole month later, but only 62 percent in another group, although immunized with two full doses with a month of difference.
Putting half the doses was actually due to an error and only a limited group had the second protocol applied, sparking criticism and concern, prompting the company to announce on November 26 that it was conducting “additional investigation” to verify the data.
“We believe we have found the winning formula and how to make two doses as effective as the others,” Astra Zeneca CEO Pascal Sorio told the Sunday Times on Sunday.
