The pharmaceutical conglomerate AstraZeneca expects to present the effectiveness of the vaccine against covid-19 by the end of the year and is increasing production to supply hundreds of millions of doses starting in January
The pharmaceutical conglomerate AstraZeneca expects to show the effectiveness of the vaccine against covid-19 by the end of the year and is increasing production to supply hundreds of millions of doses starting in January, it was announced today.
The information was advanced by executive director Pascal Soriot, quoted by the Associated Press (AP). The conglomerate has a protocol established with the University of Oxford to develop one of the most anticipated vaccines, which is in the latest clinical trials in the United States of America (USA), the United Kingdom and other countries, to determine safety and effectiveness.
As soon as the results are presented, the different regulatory authorities will have to approve the vaccine for massive use.
“We aligned the timing of delivery of vials with the timing of reading clinical trials,” explained Soriot, in a press conference, adding that, globally, it will be possible to provide “hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine” from January .
Several governments and health authorities are eagerly awaiting the development of a vaccine as the most effective method to finally put a stop to the spread of the disease pandemic (covid-19) caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), which has already caused the death to more than 1.2 million people worldwide.
Both the conglomerate and the University of Oxford have pledged to distribute the vaccine without any intention of cost while the pandemic lasts. After the pandemic is controlled, the vaccine will continue to be distributed in this way to developing countries, but the more developed countries will have to purchase the vaccine at “relatively low” cost.
The leader of the entity responsible for the analysis of vaccines in the United Kingdom, Cate Bingham, explained that there are two candidate vaccines – the one from AstraZeneca and Oxford and the one from Pfizer in collaboration with BioNTech – whose data should be available for consultation in December.
US and British regulators are working at an accelerated pace to enable faster approval of the vaccine.
“If we manage to do that, we will have the possibility of implanting it at the end of the year,” explained Bingham, during a parliamentary hearing, on Wednesday.
The official revealed that there should be four million doses of the vaccine available to the United Kingdom by the end of 2020, but the Government estimates to ensure 30 million by September 2021.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 1.2 million deaths in more than 48.1 million infection cases worldwide, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
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