07/23/2020 - 19:03
- Clarín.com
- Society
President Alberto Fernández met this afternoon at the Olivos residence with executives of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, which together with the University of Oxford is working on the development of a coronavirus vaccine that showed good results in phase I clinical trials and II.
Accompanied by the Minister of Health, Ginés González García, the President met with Agustín Lamas, General Manager for the Southern Cone of AstraZeneca; Germán de la Llave, Director of Access and Corporate Affairs in Argentina and Uruguay for the company, and Agustina Elizalde, Medical Director for the Southern Cone.
The question that everyone is asking but for now no one answers is whether they will do trials with this vaccine in Argentina, as it was already announced that it will be done with the Pfizer vaccine . The laboratory has already had two meetings with government representatives: on Monday with Minister Ginés González García and this Thursday with the President.
At Monday's meeting, González García already informed the laboratory of his desire that part of the tests being carried out with this vaccine can be carried out in Argentina. The Government considers that this possibility is strategic in order to later have better access to the doses when they are distributed.
Last Monday, a study of 1,077 volunteers (healthy adults aged 18-55) was published in the scientific journal The Lancet, showing that one dose caused an increase in antibodies to the virus in 95 percent of participants. SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.
During the meeting in Olivos, Fernández expressed his desire to guarantee prompt and equitable access to the potential vaccine, prioritizing populations at risk.
The results of the tests carried out so far show that the antibodies increased four times one month after applying the dose of this vaccine based on adenoviral vectors. Furthermore, the dose generated similar reactions to other vaccines of the same type, without serious adverse events.
New trials are underway in the UK, Brazil and South Africa, and should start in the United States, to determine how well it will protect the potential Covid-19 vaccine and to measure the safety of its use, as well as the responses immune in different age ranges and in various doses.
AstraZeneca has already pledged that, should clinical trials be successful, it will drive broad and equitable access to the vaccine , with no financial gain for the duration of the pandemic. So far the company has signed commitments to supply more than two billion doses with the United Kingdom, the United States, the Alliance for Inclusive Vaccines of Europe, the Coalition for the Preparation of Epidemics, GAVI the Vaccine Alliance and the SERUM Institute of the India.
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