The Government of the United Kingdom has authorized this Wednesday the use of the vaccine developed jointly by the University of Oxford and the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical Astrazeneca.
"After rigorous clinical trials, and analysis of the data by experts from the MHRA (Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency, in its acronym in English), it has been concluded that the vaccine meets the strictest safety criteria , quality and efficacy ”, the British Ministry of Health explained in a public statement.
The new vaccine has shown an efficacy of 62% in its largest trial, with 11,636 volunteers.
However, in a subsequent test with a subgroup of 2,741 volunteers in the UK, who were given a first half dose and a full dose four weeks later, the efficacy reached 90%.
The British Government has contracted one hundred million doses with the multinational, and hopes to receive the first four million in the next few days.
The new variant of the virus, with much greater contagion capacity, has skyrocketed the number of infected throughout the country, and the scientific community has urged the authorities to speed up the pace of the vaccination campaign as much as possible.
The Executive announced at first its intention to reach one million people vaccinated per week.
"I am confident, with the new approval, that we may have already vaccinated enough vulnerable people this spring to see a way out of this pandemic," Health Minister Matt Hancock told Sky News.
The Astrazeneca vaccine does not require such complicated logistics for its conservation and distribution as that of Pfizer, approved for use on December 2 by the MHRA and which has already been supplied to hundreds of thousands of patients.
The latter must be kept at a temperature of 70 degrees below zero, and only maintains its effectiveness for little more than three days with conventional refrigeration.
Astrazeneca can be stored between two and eight degrees.
The MHRA has used the same emergency mechanism for the authorization of the new vaccine as with that of Pfizer, and has thus managed to speed up its procedures with respect to those of the European Medicines Agency.
Under the protection of EU legislation, to which the United Kingdom is subject until December 31, when the Brexit transition period ends, the agency has relied on the emergency of the pandemic to unilaterally current .
"The news of the emergency authorization of the Oxford vaccine could not have come at a more appropriate time, given the speed of transmission of the new variant of the virus," Ravindra Gpta, professor of Clinical Microbiology at the SMC, told the scientific portal. the University of Cambridge.
“Plans to give a first dose to as many people as possible are sensible, but it is necessary to give priority to the NHS (National Health Service) health workers, because if the health workers get sick, it will mean more of deaths this winter ”.
The Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunizations (JCVI) has recommended that the British Government use the vaccines available from Pfizer and Astrazeneca to deliver a first dose to the largest number of vulnerable people, rather than giving the two doses within the timeframe recommended by the manufacturers. .
The second intake would be injected into patients within a maximum period of 12 weeks.
"In this way we will ensure that more people at risk get significant protection in the coming weeks and months, thus reducing the number of deaths and alleviating pressure on the health system," the Ministry of Health explained in its statement.
While the vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna (the latter pending approval) are developed from a state-of-the-art technique that injects synthetic RNA into cells so that they are the ones that develop the antigens that set off the defenses, that of Astrazeneca is based on a more than 10-year-old method that uses weakened DNA from the chimpanzee common cold virus, into which SARS-CoV-2 genetic material is inserted.
The recently approved vaccine has a cost of about three euros, compared to the 15 of average that the one of Pfizer supposes.
Astrazeneca is committed to ensuring equitable, sufficient and cost-free distribution throughout the world for the duration of the pandemic situation.
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