London – One of the strongest weapons against the worrying number of new ones coronavirus Variants in the United States and around the world may be a vaccine that the FDA has not yet approved.
Earlier this month, the World Health Organization gave its approval to the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to be used internationally, and is already being distributed in countries around the world to help combat COVID-19. But AstraZeneca is awaiting the results of clinical trials in America, which it hopes to conclude in the coming weeks, before submitting its application to the FDA.
Meanwhile, driven by the fact that their vaccine is relatively easy to upgrade, scientists at the University of Oxford in Britain are modifying it in a preventive strike to prevent new coronavirus variants from being taken advantage of, including the variant discovered in the South. -Africa.
“Plug and play”
The head teacher, Professor Sarah Gilbert, told CBS News that her team has been working for months on modifying the vaccine to address new variants of the coronavirus and hopes to have a new version ready in the fall.
The ability to light a penny depends on the “plug and play” platform used in the original Oxford vaccine, Gilbert said.
“You decide what antigen you want to use from the virus against which you want to make a vaccine, exactly what version, and then you just have to include it and make your vaccine,” he said.
He also stressed that as Oxford has its own biofabrication facility on campus, modifications could be accelerated.
“We have established our pipeline,” he said. “We make the first vaccine seed at the Oxford factory. It’s a few minutes from here on campus.”
Gilbert said a modified vaccine, which would take on not only the South African variant, but a number of concerns, could be rolled out in the United States in a matter of months.
“Amazing” impact
Even before the modification, Oxford scientists say their vaccine is very effective in combating the fugitive variant first discovered in the UK. Preliminary real-life data shows that it maintained hospitalizations at 94%, even surpassing the Pfizer vaccine.
“We’ve seen the first widespread use of a vaccine in an environment where a new variant has emerged,” Andrew Pollard, head of the Oxford vaccine group, told CBS News. “The vaccine has an impact against this variant. That’s amazing.”
Part of the reason for this success is the 12-week gap between shots in the UK, rather than the four-week program currently available in the US, Pollard said.
“If you give this vaccine to a lot, a lot more people as a first dose, this will end the hospitalization and death immediately, whereas if you give two doses very close together, you will give those two doses selfishly to half the number of people, slowing down reducing this deployment and protecting the population, ”Pollard said.
With more than 500,000 dead in the United States, and new variants continue to appear, the need to fire more shots faster has never been higher.