In a statement, the UK government said the Agency for the Regulation of Medicines and Health Products (MHRA) had authorized Oxford University’s Covid-19 vaccine / AstraZeneca after “rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of data by MHRA experts “.
The vaccine had met “strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness,” the statement added.
“The NHS has a clear vaccine delivery plan and decades of experience in delivering large-scale vaccination programs. It has already vaccinated hundreds of thousands of patients with the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and will continue to roll out. Now the NHS will begin launching preparations in action to roll out the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine. “
“Excitingly, we have found that one of our dosing regimens can be around 90% effective, and if this dosing regimen is used, more people could be vaccinated with a planned supply of vaccines,” said Andrew Pollard , chief researcher of the Oxford Vaccine Trial. in November.
The vaccine, developed at Oxford University in England, is significantly cheaper than the others and would basically be much easier to transport and distribute to developing countries than its rivals, as it does not need to be stored at temperatures. icy.
“I think it’s the only vaccine that can be used in these settings right now,” Azra Ghani, president of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, told CNN.
The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine can be kept at a refrigerator temperature of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit) for at least six months. The Moderna vaccine should be stored at less than 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) – or at refrigerator temperature for up to 30 days – and the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine should be stored at less than 75 degrees centigrade (minus 103 degrees Fahrenheit)), and is used within five days once cooled to higher temperatures.
“Pfizer and Moderna require storage in the freezer, and that’s not in place in many environments,” Ghani said.
“Cold chain” refrigeration is the standard storage used worldwide to administer vaccines from central locations to local health clinics. The AstraZeneca vaccine is so far “the only one that can definitely be administered to these systems,” Ghani added.
Vaccines are based on different technologies. AstraZeneca’s offering, like Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and Russian Sputnik V, uses an adenovirus to transport genetic fragments of coronavirus to the body.