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London (CNN) - The
United Kingdom has approved the use of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, which is cheaper and easier to distribute than some alternatives and could, over time, offer a route out of the pandemic in large parts of the world.
The UK government said it would follow a new immunization strategy for the vaccine, prioritizing giving the first in a series of two doses of vaccine to as many people as possible, before giving a second dose up to 12 weeks later.
This will apply to both the recently approved Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, which is already being rolled out.
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"This is important because it means that we can give the first dose to more people more quickly and they can get the protection that the first dose provides," UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News on Wednesday.
“Scientists and regulators have looked at the data and found that you get what they call 'very effective protection' from the first dose.
The second dose is still important, especially for long-term protection, but it means that we will be able to vaccinate more people more quickly than we could before.
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Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine: a ray of hope
The UK is the first country to approve the Oxford University / AstraZeneca vaccine.
The news represents a ray of hope for the country at a time when its health services are struggling to cope with rising infection rates linked to a new, more contagious variant of the virus.
The approval comes weeks after the country became the first in the world to begin inoculating its citizens with the Pfizer / BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.
Professor Calum Semple, UK government scientific adviser, welcomed what he called a new 'sophisticated approach', telling Sky News that 'a one-dose approach to start with will protect many people'.
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According to Semple, evidence from vaccine trials has shown that a single dose has not only prevented people from getting serious illnesses, it has also elicited a "very good immune response" in frail and elderly people.
In a statement early Wednesday, the UK government said the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) had licensed the covid-19 vaccine from the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca after 'rigorous clinical trials and a comprehensive analysis of the data by MHRA experts ”.
AstraZeneca said the first doses would be available on Wednesday, so vaccines in the UK could start early in the New Year.
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The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine has the potential to rapidly protect millions more people around the world when approval is granted by regulators in other nations.
AstraZeneca has promised to supply hundreds of millions of doses to low- and middle-income countries and to deliver the vaccine nonprofit to those nations in perpetuity.
The vaccine is significantly cheaper than others that have been approved and, more importantly, it would be much easier to transport and distribute in developing countries than its rivals, since it does not need to be stored in freezing temperatures.
"I think it is the only vaccine that can be used in those settings at the moment," Azra Ghani, chair of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, told CNN.
"Pfizer and Moderna require freezer storage, and that's just not available in many settings."
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