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A CORONAVIRUS vaccine that could save millions of lives can be ready in just months in a landmark deal.
British pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca will manufacture and distribute the potential Oxford University COVID-19 vaccine worldwide “virtually free” if the trials at Oxford are deemed to be successful.
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The Cambridge-based company did not give details on when it will start producing the vaccine for Covid-19, which has so far infected more than 3 million people and killed more than 215,000.
While there are more than 70 vaccines in development for the coronavirus, industry experts expect development to take at least 12-18 months.
Professor Sir John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, said today that the new vaccine will be “distributed at cost” and “basically free” at the initial launch, which will focus on society’s most vulnerable .
Despite the excitement surrounding the vaccine, he said it was important for people to understand that it is still a development program and that the team still needed to demonstrate that it will work in a human population.
“TThe team at Oxford led by Andy Pollard at the clinic has done a great job, they have now vaccinated several hundred people and we hope to get some sign of whether or not it is working by the end of June.
“The challenge is that once we get regulatory approval, we don’t want to have to go back to the beginning and have to figure out how to scale it.”
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Speaking on this morning’s Today show, the professor said the UK’s manufacturing capacity “is not where it should be,” adding that AstraZeneca could “improve that considerably.”
He added: “It is really preparing facilities to expand the vaccine, so we will have to do 30 or 40 million doses in the first instance to try to have enough availability so that, if it is approved, we can vaccinate people immediately.
“For example, like the vials in which the vaccine is placed in the so-called filling and finalization, there are now only 200 million vials in the world because they have been absorbed by several people who can anticipate the arrival of a vaccine, so there are So many challenges to make this work and we are delighted to have such a great and powerful partner working with us. “
The professor said the first part of the plan was to make sure there are enough vaccines on the ground for vulnerable people.
“There are 30 million doses of the vaccine, which should cover all vulnerable patients, but at the same time we are going to start talking and in fact Oxford has already started talking to some partners abroad so they can prepare” .
Pascal Soriot, executive director of AstraZeneca, said in a statement: “Our hope is that, by joining forces, we can accelerate the globalization of a vaccine to combat the virus and protect people from the deadliest pandemic in a generation.”
Also speaking about the Today program, he admitted that it was a financial risk for the company, but said that “now was the time to take on these risks” and that solutions were needed to manage the pandemic.
He said the company would depend on manufacturing organizations and increase its own manufacturing capacity in the coming months to be able to distribute the vaccine “if it works.”
Science is uncertain, and no vaccine can work, but this deal gives the UK the best possible chance of a breakthrough that can defeat this horrible virus.
Matt Hancock
Soriot added that there are already collaborations between the Oxford unit and its partners around the world.
“I hope this is not the only vaccine available, I hope there are several available to meet the diverse needs of companies around the world.”
He confirmed that the vaccine would be produced at the cost of the pandemic period. He said that the cost of the vaccine will not be very high and will be available to everyone.
The Jenner Institute and the Oxford Vaccine Group have been working on a vaccine, called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, with work to start millions of doses before trials show whether it is effective.
Last week, the team dosed the first volunteers in a vaccine trial, with possible early readings in May.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock described AstraZenca’s move as “very welcome news.”
He tweeted: “The Oxford vaccine is one of the most advanced in the world.
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“Bringing together the best of British science and the best of British business will give us the best possible shot of a vaccine.
“The science is uncertain, and no vaccine can work, but this deal gives the UK the best possible chance of a breakthrough that could defeat this terrible virus.”
“I am sending my best wishes of good fortune to all involved, for the good of the nation and indeed the entire world.”
While some experts say the vaccine will be ready in 12-18 months, others have said it is an “optimistic figure.”
James Cutrell, director of the infectious disease fellowship program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said this figure will only be based on the assumption that all trials will be conducted as planned.
How is a vaccine approved?
For a vaccine to be available to the general public, it must go through a long process. Scientists working on a coronavirus vaccine are trying to speed up this process.
Here are the main stages:
- The exploratory stage: is the research phase, used to discover what can help treat or prevent disease.
- Preclinical stage: laboratory and animal research.
- Clinical development: This is a three stage process. In stage one, small groups receive the vaccine, stage two is administered to people with similar characteristics to which the vaccine is intended, and step three is when the vaccine is given to thousands of people for testing
- Regulatory review and approval – where the right agencies are contacted and linked to market launch
- Manufacturing – drug production
- Quality control: does the vaccine do what it says it will?
Speaking to the Huffington Post said: “I would say that the 12 to 18 months that some experts have faced are realistic, but they are optimistic.
“It is based on the assumption that each phase of testing is done according to plan, with an optimistic time frame at each of those stages.”
As the new vaccine continues in the development stage, a drug used to treat Ebola patients has shown “very promising” initial results in a trial of people admitted to the hospital with coronavirus, the scientists said.
Patients who received remdesivir had a recovery time that was almost a third faster than those who received a placebo, the first results of an international clinical trial showed.
Abdel Babiker, professor of epidemiology and medical statistics at UCL, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program: “These are very encouraging results from the first large-scale randomized trial to report any Covid-19 treatment.”
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A second sign of hope: could the Ebola drug help Covid-19 patients recover faster?
A drug used to treat Ebola patients has shown “very promising” initial results in a trial of people admitted to the hospital with coronavirus, the scientists said.
Patients who received remdesivir had a recovery time that was almost a third faster than those who received a placebo, the first results of an international clinical trial showed.
Abdel Babiker, professor of epidemiology and medical statistics at UCL, told BBC Radio 4’s Today program: “These are very encouraging results from the first large-scale randomized trial to report any Covid-19 treatment.”
He said the group of adults admitted to hospital with advanced coronavirus who received remdesivir recovered “much faster” than the group who received a placebo.
Preliminary results also suggested a survival benefit, with a lower mortality rate of 8 percent for the group receiving the drug, compared to 11.6 percent for the placebo group, the National Institute of Allergy said. Infectious Diseases (NIAD).
More than 1,000 patients worldwide, including 46 from the UK, have been recruited for the Covid-19 Adaptive Treatment Trial, which started in early April. Scientists involved in the study defined recovery as being well enough to leave oxygen, be discharged from the hospital, or even return to normal levels of activity.
During the trial, which involved more than 70 hospitals worldwide, patients received the antiviral drug every day for 10 days while they remained in the hospital. Professor Mahesh Parmar, director of the UCL Medical Research Council’s Clinical Trials Unit, which oversaw the EU portion of the trial, said scientists will continue to collect more data as regulators review the first results.
Professor Parmar said: “These results are very promising. They show that this medicine can clearly improve recovery time.
“Before this drug can become more widely available, several things need to happen: Regulators must review the data and results to assess whether the drug can be licensed, and then they must be evaluated by the relevant health authorities in various countries .
“As this happens, we will get more longer-term data from this trial, and others, on whether the drug also prevents Covid-19 deaths.”
He said the group of adults admitted to hospital with advanced coronavirus who received remdesivir recovered “much faster” than the group who received a placebo.
Preliminary results also suggested a survival benefit, with a lower mortality rate of 8 percent for the group receiving the drug, compared to 11.6 percent for the placebo group, the National Institute of Allergy said. Infectious Diseases (NIAD).
More than 1,000 patients worldwide, including 46 from the UK, have been recruited for the Covid-19 Adaptive Treatment Trial, which started in early April.
Scientists involved in the study defined recovery as being well enough to leave oxygen, be discharged from the hospital, or even return to normal levels of activity.
During the trial, which involved more than 70 hospitals worldwide, patients received the antiviral drug every day for 10 days while they remained in the hospital.
Professor Mahesh Parmar, director of the UCL Medical Research Council’s Clinical Trials Unit, which oversaw the EU portion of the trial, said scientists will continue to collect more data as regulators review the first results.
Professor Parmar said: “These results are very promising. They show that this medicine can clearly improve recovery time.
“Before this drug can become more widely available, several things need to happen: Regulators must review the data and results to assess whether the drug can be licensed, and then they must be evaluated by the relevant health authorities in various countries .
“As this happens, we will get more longer-term data from this trial, and others, on whether the drug also prevents Covid-19 deaths.”
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