British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced on 23 March that its 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) vaccine candidate, developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, UK, was tested in patients with all levels of symptoms, with an average protection of 70%.
Today is an important milestone in our fight against the disease,” said Pascal Soriot, CEO of Astellas, the pharmaceutical company that produces the Oxford vaccine in the UK. The demonstrated efficacy and safety of this vaccine confirms that it is highly effective against the new coronavirus and will have an immediate impact on this public health emergency,” said Pascal Soriot, CEO of Astellitec, the British manufacturer of the Oxford vaccine.
Prime Minister Johnson said: “It is very exciting news that clinical trials have confirmed that the Oxford vaccine is so effective. The U.K. government has ordered 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine, which is available to 50 million people.
The clinical trials of the Oxford vaccine were conducted in the United Kingdom and Brazil and involved more than 20,000 people. Of the subjects who received two doses of the vaccine, 30 were infected. Of the subjects who received a placebo, 101 were infected. According to the report: Oxford vaccine developers took the chimpanzee influenza virus and slightly modified it so that it instructed human cells to attack the new coronavirus. This technique differs from the “messenger ribonucleic acid” (mRNA) technology used in the Pfizer and Modena vaccines.
While the vaccine’s immunity is lower than that of the two previous vaccines already available, the Oxford vaccine can be stored for at least six months in an ordinary refrigerated environment, between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, meaning that the Oxford vaccine can be distributed more easily around the world. In addition, the Oxford vaccine is much cheaper. While the first vaccine, Pfizer, must be stored at -75 degrees Celsius at very low temperatures, the Modena vaccine can be stored at -20 degrees Celsius for six months, but only for one month in a regular refrigerator.
According to Reuters, the results of the trial showed that when the vaccine was administered, a half dose of the first dose and a full dose of the second dose provided more protection than a full dose of both doses. And the Oxford vaccine makers will this week begin discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to change the experimental vaccine’s trial design to include a potentially more effective dosing regimen. The Oxford Vaccine Research Group also said that the vaccine they developed together would have a higher calculated protective power if they had only looked at whether it could keep patients out of the hospital or out of serious illness. The average protection of the Oxford vaccine, at 70 percent, is lower than that of the two previously introduced vaccines, but it is actually possible to increase the protection even further.
While waiting for the vaccine to be approved by regulators around the world, the pharmaceutical companies producing the Oxford vaccine also announced that they will maintain stocks of the API and have enough to produce 200 million doses by the end of the year, and 700 million doses by the end of March next year to supply the world’s needs.
The European Union’s Medicines Agency (EMA) said on 23 March that the first 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) vaccines could be approved by the end of this year or early next year, with the most promising candidates currently being evaluated. Clinical trials have shown that Pfizer’s trial vaccine is 95% effective in preventing COVID-19. Modena also announced that its vaccine has a protection of 94.5%. The Oxford vaccine has an average efficacy of 70%. However, when based on the dose and method of vaccination, the maximum efficacy is 90%. The European Medicines Agency is conducting a “rolling review” to speed up the approval of the three vaccines, but at this stage it is difficult to predict the approval schedule with any precision.
World Health Organization (WHO) Secretary-General Tan Desai said on March 23 that poor and vulnerable countries are at risk of being trampled on as the world scrambles for the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) vaccine, adding that the WHO-led vaccine sharing initiative needs $4.3 billion urgently. Dozens of countries have signed up to the so-called Global Mechanism for Vaccine Access (COVAX) structure, a collaboration between WHO and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) to provide vaccines to countries that may not be able to afford them. The mechanism has now raised $5 billion, including more than $600 million from Germany.
Recent Comments