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LONDON: Britain on Wednesday (December 30) became the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca as it battles a large winter surge fueled by a highly contagious new variant of the virus. .
AstraZeneca said the authorization was for a two-dose regimen and that the vaccine had been approved for use as an emergency supply. Britain ordered 100 million doses of the vaccine.
“The government today accepted the recommendation of the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to authorize the use of the COVID-19 vaccine from the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca,” the Health Ministry said.
Britain is already launching the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. In a shift in focus, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) said the priority should be to give the first dose to the largest number of people in risk groups, rather than providing the two necessary doses in the shortest time possible. .
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Health Minister Matt Hancock said the MHRA would establish more details on the dosing regimen later Wednesday.
The regulatory backing is a welcome boost for AstraZeneca and the Oxford team, who have been accused of a lack of clarity on late-stage trial results.
“Today is an important day for millions of people in the UK who will have access to this new vaccine,” said AstraZeneca Chief Executive Pascal Soriot. “It has been shown to be effective, well tolerated, easy to administer and is supplied by AstraZeneca on a non-profit basis.”
Pooled results from those trials show that it had an overall efficacy of 70.4 percent. Efficacy was 62 percent for trial participants who received two full doses, but 90 percent for a smaller subgroup who received half and then a full dose.
The researchers said the finding of 90 percent efficacy for the low-dose / high-dose regimen needed further investigation. AstraZeneca did not specify which dose regimen had been approved.
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“To get out of this debacle, there is no alternative to having a significant majority of the population with a high level of neutralizing antibodies. With today’s announcement it is within our grasp,” said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College of London.
“I suspect this will speed things up in several months. An immune population in the spring begins to look feasible.”
The pandemic has already killed 1.7 million people worldwide, wreaked havoc on the global economy and disrupted the normal lives of billions since it began in Wuhan, China, a year ago.
Britain and South Africa in particular are grappling with new variants of the coronavirus, which the government and scientists say are more contagious; many countries have responded by banning passenger flights and blocking trade.
AstraZeneca and other developers have said that they are studying the impact of the new variant, but hope that their shots will be effective against it.
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