UK approves AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine for COVID

British regulators on Wednesday approved a coronavirus vaccine designed by scientists at the University of Oxford.

The UK has ordered 100 million doses from the manufacturer AstraZeneca — enough to vaccinate 50 million people.

The approval, by the medicines regulator, means the vaccine is classed as both safe and effective.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the “fantastic news” as “a triumph for British science.”

It is truly fantastic news – and a triumph for British science – that the @UniofOxford /@AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use.

We will now move to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible. pic.twitter.com/cR4pRdZJlT

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) December 30, 2020

Health secretary Matt Hancock said the vaccine roll out would begin on January 4, with preparations made for its delivery in the coming days. “We’ve got enough of this vaccine on order to vaccinate the whole population,” he told a private source, adding the 100m doses the UK has purchased would cover the whole adult population. “By the spring, enough people will be protected to allow us to exit the pandemic,” he said.

The new variant of Covid-19 identified in the UK earlier this month has seen infection rates soar and Mr Hancock is expected to announce tougher curbs across England later on Wednesday. Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca chief executive, told the BBC’s Today programme he was confident the vaccine would work against the new variant. $3-$4 The expected price of a single Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine dose, which the group has pledged to sell at cost “Our colleagues at Oxford are working very intensively with the NHS to test that and confirm this but our belief is the vaccine will work,” he said.

The vaccine’s approval is expected to significantly ramp up the UK’s mass vaccination programme. It is easier to store than the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, which has been at the centre of the campaign but must be kept at minus 70C, making difficult to access for care homes and GP practices.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine can be stored at between 2C and 8C — the temperature of a conventional fridge — making it easier to distribute. Moreover, it may not require people to be monitored for 15 minutes after receiving the shot, which would help maintain social distancing.

Large-scale human trials showed the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was 70.4% effective at preventing COVID-19 infection overall, but that was an average of results for trial participants who received both two full doses, and a full dose followed by a half dose. In the sub-group who got the half-dose in their second shot, the efficacy of the vaccine was about 90%, but AstraZeneca said that dosing regimen would require more investigation.

It wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday morning whether the British government would approve the full two-dose regimen of the drug, or the half-dose second shot, but it was clear the immediate priority would be to get as many people as possible a full first dose.

Britain has only approved the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines for use in patients over the age of 18, but given the focus on inoculating people in the highest-risk groups first, the vast majority of those who can expect a shot before or within the first quarter of the new year will be the elderly, front-line health care workers, or those with serious underlying conditions.

The U.K. government has reserved 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and AstraZeneca said Wednesday that it expected the first 20 million of those to be made available within the first quarter of 2021.

“Today is an important day for millions of people in the U.K. who will get access to this new vaccine,” AstraZeneca boss Soriot said in a statement. “It has been shown to be effective, well-tolerated, simple to administer and is supplied by AstraZeneca at no profit.”