The Oxford University vaccine against COVID-19 is on the brink of getting regulatory approval. The vaccine, which is being produced by bio-pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and also has a tie-up with the Serum Institute of India, is being evaluated by the UK's independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) after the final cut of data was submitted by the government last Monday.
Once the vaccine is approved in the UK, it is expected that India will give emergency authorisation nod to the same. Oxford could also become the first vaccine candidate to be deployed in India in January 2021. Serum Institute of India has already produced around 50 million dosages of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine 'Covishield' and plans to scale it up to 100 million by March next year even as it awaits approval for emergency use authorisation.
The Oxford candidate should be effective against the highly transmissible new strain of the virus, a UK media report said on Sunday. The UK government has always regarded the Oxford vaccine as the one that would transform the battle against COVID-19, since it can be stored in a fridge and costs as little as 2 pounds a shot. The Pfizer drug has to be kept at temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius and costs 15 pounds a dose.
AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot had stressed that researchers have found the "winning formula" using two doses of the vaccine, ahead of the final results being published. He has raised hopes that the jabs are more effective than first thought and should be effective against a new variant of the coronavirus that is now causing havoc in most parts of the UK.
More vaccine rollouts underway
The candidate made by Novavax Inc is the fifth to reach final-stage testing in the US. Some 30,000 volunteers are needed to prove if this vaccine a different kind than its Pfizer and Moderna competitors really works and is safe.
"If you want to have enough vaccine to vaccinate all the people in the U.S. who you would like to vaccinate up to 85 per cent or more of the population you are going to need more than two companies," Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press.
The study, which is funded by the US government, is open to all adults but will focus on high-risk older adults and volunteers from Black and Hispanic communities who have been hard-hit by the virus. Two-thirds of volunteers will receive the vaccine and the rest will get dummy shots.
The Novavax candidate uses lab-grown harmless copies of the spike protein that coats the coronavirus to train the body to recognise if the real virus comes along. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines instead use a newer technology, injecting the genetic code for that protein.
In the US, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca also have vaccine candidates in late-stage testing.
