AstraZeneca announces that it has found the “winning formula” for an effective vaccine. The serum could be approved in the UK in the next few days Freedom

After the disappointing news about the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine transmitted in November, AstraZeneca officials arrived Sunday with much more optimistic conclusions.

“We believe we have discovered the winning formula and are beginning to reach a level of efficacy that, after two doses, is as high as the other (vaccines),” CEO Pascal Soriot told the Sunday Times, assuring that the vaccine provides “100% protection” against severe forms of Covid-19.

Soriot also expressed confidence that the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine will protect against new strains of the virus.

Against this mutation, “we believe for the moment that the vaccine must remain effective,” said Pascal Soriot. “But we can’t be sure until we run additional tests.”

The British government announced Wednesday that it had submitted full data on the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine to the national vaccine regulator, the MHRA.

A long-awaited vaccine

The vaccine produced by Oxford / AstraZeneca is highly anticipated, because it is relatively cheap compared to the others, and does not need to be kept at as low a temperature as that produced by Pfizer / BioNTech, -70 degrees Celsius, notes AFP. , cited by Agerpres.

This will facilitate widespread vaccination.

AstraZeneca’s progress will also bring good news to EU countries. The European Commission has contracted 300 million doses of the vaccine, with an option to purchase another 100 million.

They would be necessary to control the pandemic as soon as possible, given that the current number of doses purchased by the EU is not enough to immunize the entire population in the first half of next year.

The first results, disappointing

In interim results from large-scale clinical trials in the UK and Brazil, the British laboratory announced in November that its vaccine has an average efficacy of 70%, compared to more than 90% of vaccines produced by Pfizer / BioNTech and Modern .

Behind these results are the big differences between two different test protocols: the effectiveness is 90% for volunteers who first received a half dose, then a full dose a month later, but it is only 62% for another. group vaccinated with two full doses.

These results were criticized because the injection of half the dose was due to an error and a relatively small group of volunteers followed this protocol. The company later announced that its vaccine needed “further study.”

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