09/04/2020 - 10:52
Clarín.com
Society
The countries of the European Union (EU) will have access to the coronavirus vaccine in November prepared by the British company AstraZeneca, which works together with the University of Oxford, according to EU sources reported on Thursday.
According to the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, Brussels already has a contract with AstraZeneca that guarantees access to at least
300 million doses
, for which funds have already been advanced.
It will be the EU itself that subsequently sends the vaccine to community partners, in quantities proportional to their population, so that everyone has access to it at the same time and at the same price.
"The important thing is that it is a collective effort and all [countries] will have
equitable access
," said the same sources.
It should be remembered that Donald Trump announced that also in November the United States could authorize the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for emergencies.
In any case, the European Commission is
negotiating with five other laboratories
to close similar contracts and have a wide range of vaccines available to them, trying to minimize the risk of acquiring treatments that are not effective.
According to the same sources, it is up to the member states to decide who receives the vaccine, although they consider that a good first step would be to vaccinate 30% of the population.
La Vanguardia points out that the Minister of Science and Innovation of Spain, Pedro Duque, stressed this Thursday that that country and the EU are "very clear" that when they approve a vaccine it will be because they have "absolute confidence" that it is
"totally" safe and high efficiency
.
Duque thus rejected the possibility of a vaccine being approved before the end of clinical trials, as Russia and China have done and as the United States could do as well, according to Donald Trump.
Works at the AstraZeneca laboratory in Australia.
The vaccine from that laboratory will arrive in Europe in November, the EU announced.
Photo EFE.
In Argentina, Minister Ginés González García reported that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be available to begin immunization "not before the first quarter of 2021".
“Before the end of the year it can be manufactured and approved in phase 3, but then it goes through different phases to see its stability.
It is a very complex process ”, he had explained.
Esteban Corley, director of mAbxience, the laboratory that will produce the active substance in its plant in Pilar, had also estimated that the first batches would arrive in our country in 2021. “If all is well in February, we will start with commercial production from the beginning active, ”he told
Clarín
.
These batches will then go to the Liomont laboratory in Mexico, where they will be packaged in jars (called vials) and then distributed to the countries of the region with the exception of Brazil, which has its own agreement.
Mass vaccinations
In turn, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced this Friday that it is most likely that we will have to wait until
mid-2021
for mass vaccinations against covid-19 to be carried out.
"Realistically, we do not expect to see mass vaccinations until the middle of next year," the organization's spokeswoman, Margaret Harris, told reporters on Friday.
He specified, according to the EFE news agency, that
between six and nine vaccine candidates
are in advanced stages of research, with a part of them in phase 3 of clinical trials, which require the participation of at least 30,000 volunteers.
In this phase of the development of a vaccine, information on the efficacy of the product is extracted and it is confirmed that it is safe.
Samples of the candidate development for a coronavirus vaccine from the Sinovac Biotech laboratory.
Photo Reuters.
The race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, which has launched dozens of pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms, has generated
hope
and
confusion
about the timeframe in which one or more vaccines could actually be available to the public.
Harris acknowledged that this confusion exists and that, in part, it has been fueled by the fact that there are people who are being vaccinated in the framework of clinical trials that are being carried out with various candidate vaccines that, strictly speaking, are not yet known. if they really work.
"Different research groups are vaccinating people, but right now we don't have a clear signal that a sufficient level of efficacy and safety has been reached," Harris explained.
He added that, in view of the resources that are being put into it, it is very likely that there will end up having
more than one vaccine available
and that those that come onto the market could be used in different population groups.
However, Harris recognized
the danger of "feeding false hopes"
among the population because this can "increase complacency" towards the virus and cause basic preventive gestures, such as social distance, the use of masks and the washing of hands, to be neglected. hands.
"Let us remember that at the beginning of this pandemic many played down its importance and said that it would pass soon. That attitude has led us to very difficult times," the spokeswoman commented.
His words recalled the positions assumed by political leaders, such as the presidents of the United States, Donald Trump;
or from Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who minimized the severity of the coronavirus when it began to circulate in their countries.
Faced with impatience around the search for a vaccine, Harris argued that phase 3 of clinical trials takes the longest, but it must be well conducted to fully understand the level of protection offered by the vaccine and its level of safety. .
A possible coronavirus vaccine from the China National Biotec Group, a unit of the state-owned pharmaceutical giant China National Pharmaceutical Group.
Reuters photo
He added that the results of the different vaccine candidates should be compared to see which one is the best and that, for that, the research data should be shared.
China and Russia claim to have discovered vaccines that work against COVID-19 and have indicated that they have begun to use them in their populations or are about to do so, despite the fact that they have not completed phase 3 of the clinical trials.
Harris could not confirm whether the WHO has received the scientific data it has requested from Russia on its vaccine.
LGP