US hopes to approve UK-backed AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in April – Manila Bulletin

The United States is expected to approve the low-cost AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine in April, a senior official said, more than three months after Britain’s green light on Wednesday.

Moncef Slaoui, the senior adviser for Operation Warp Speed, the US military-led effort for vaccines, told reporters that US tests and evaluations would be complete for approval “sometime in early April.”

“Several tens of millions of doses will have been manufactured … and therefore will be available for use if the data supports their approval,” he said.

He did not claim that Britain was quick to make its decision and praised the British regulatory agency MHRA as “science-based”.

“Therefore, I do not raise any doubts about the decision they have made,” he said.

“Having said that, the requirements of the decision process as we have built it here in the US is what I can really comment on.”

Slaoui also expressed hope that Johnson & Johnson will approve the Janssen vaccine in the first half of February, which unlike the initially approved vaccines comes in a single dose.