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The COVID-19 vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has attracted the attention of researchers around the world for good reason. Now, media reports say the vaccine could be rolled out in the UK within three months.
Scientists working on the Oxford vaccine hope that regulators will approve it before early 2021, with each adult possibly receiving a dose beginning Easter.
Once the process is underway, it could take 6 months to distribute the vaccine, however the timeline could be even faster than that, government sources told the media. They also hope that a full COVID-19 vaccination program, which would exclude children, is likely to be significantly faster than anticipated.
Earlier Thursday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) also said it has begun reviewing data on the possible COVID-19 vaccine from Oxford, in real time, the first of these moves aimed at speeding up any approval process in the region. for a vaccine. . This indicates the possibility that the British vaccine will become the first to be approved in Europe for COVID-19.
It is worth mentioning here that the Serum Institute of India had already signed an agreement with AstraZeneca to produce doses of the Oxford vaccine in India. Trials of the vaccine are underway across the country.
Vaccinate the whole UK ‘not going to happen’
Even if the Oxford vaccine comes out before the end of this year, not everyone in the UK will get the vaccine.
In an interview with an international business newspaper, Britain’s Vaccine Task Force Chair Kate Bingham said that vaccinating everyone in the country against coronavirus is “ not going to happen ” and that only the vaccine will be applied to them. vaccinate those at risk.
According to Bingham, there will be no vaccination for people under the age of 18. It is a vaccine for adults only, for people over 50 years of age, with priority for healthcare workers and nursing home workers and the vulnerable.
She opposes the idea of vaccinating the entire population, saying that giving the vaccine to healthy people, who are much less likely to have severe COVID-19 results “could cause them extraordinary harm.”
The goal is to vaccinate about 30 million people, compared to a UK population of about 67 million, if an effective vaccine against COVID-19 is found, Bingham told the newspaper.
Can a vaccine stop the COVID-19 pandemic?
Vaccination is considered the only way to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, which has so far killed more than a million people around the world. But a group of researchers warned that the coronavirus vaccine, which has the potential to protect the body from the virus, will not be able to stop the pandemic on its own.
While the UK government is hopeful that the Oxford vaccine will be available by the end of the year, a report from the Royal Society said it would be a long process.
The researchers also cautioned that vaccine development has seen failures many times in the past. Even if the vaccine is available to the public, it is not possible to vaccinate everyone in a month. This process could take around six months, nine months or even a year, they added.
Published: October 5, 2020 10:49 am
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