By James Gallagher
Science and Health Correspondent
image copyrightReuters
The coronavirus vaccine designed by scientists at the University of Oxford has been approved for use in the UK.
It will lead to a massive expansion of the UK’s immunization campaign, aimed at getting life back to normal.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said implementation will begin on January 4 “and it will really accelerate in the first weeks of next year.”
The UK has ordered 100 million doses from the manufacturer AstraZeneca, enough to vaccinate 50 million people.
Approval by the drug regulator means the vaccine is safe and effective.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was designed in the first months of 2020, tested with the first volunteer in April, and has since undergone large-scale clinical trials involving thousands of people.
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It has developed at a rate that would have been unthinkable before the pandemic.
It is the second prick approved in the UK after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved in December.
More than 600,000 people in the UK have been vaccinated since Margaret Keenan became the first in the world to receive such a jab outside of a clinical trial.
But the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will lead to a significant increase in vaccination, as it is cheap and easy to mass-produce.
Fundamentally, it can be stored in a standard refrigerator, unlike the Pfizer-BioNTech jab, which needs ultra-cold storage at -70 ° C, so it will be much easier to bring the Oxford vaccine to nursing homes and GP surgeries .
Priority groups for immunization have already been identified, including the elderly, nursing home residents, and health and care workers.
The new approval of the vaccine comes after Public Health England said the country was facing “unprecedented” levels of infections, and health officials in parts of Wales, Scotland and southern England expressed concern about mounting pressure on the NHS.
Who will get the vaccine?
The immunization campaign will now change to give as many people as possible their first dose of vaccine.
The goal will be to provide the greatest number of vulnerable people with some protection against Covid-19.
The decision is based on the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Welfare said: “The priority should be to give the first dose to the largest number of people in risk groups, rather than to provide the two required doses in the shortest time possible.
“Everyone will get their second dose and this will be within 12 weeks of the first. The second dose completes the cycle and is important for long-term protection.”
How effective is the Oxford vaccine?
There are three figures circulating: 62%, 70% and 90%.
The first analysis of the trial data showed that 70% of the people were protected from the development of Covid-19 and no one developed a serious illness or needed hospital treatment.
The figure was only 62% when people received two full doses of the jab and 90% when they first received half the dose and then the full dose.
The Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved two full doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
However, unpublished data suggests that leaving a longer gap between the first and second doses increases the overall efficacy of the jab.
There was not enough clear data to support the idea of half dose and full dose.
All vaccines are expected to be equally effective against the new variants of the virus that have emerged.
How does it work?
The vaccine is a genetically modified common cold virus that is used to infect chimpanzees.
It has been modified to prevent it from causing an infection in people and to carry the blueprints for part of the coronavirus, known as spike protein.
Once these blueprints are inside the body, they begin to produce the coronavirus spike protein, which the immune system recognizes as a threat and attempts to squash it.
So when the immune system comes into contact with the real virus, it already knows what to do.
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