The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca could be approved “soon after” Christmas, according to Oxford University medical professor Regius, raising hopes for millions of people and companies affected by the pandemic across the country .
John Bell told BBC Radio 4 Today that he hoped Britain’s medical regulator would give the green light to the joint injection made by AstraZeneca AZN,
and the University of Oxford, “soon”.
The Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency received “several sets of data” about the candidate vaccine AstraZeneca-Oxford, Bell told the BBC, adding that “it had no concern that the data looked better than ever.”
“I doubt we’ll have Christmas now, but right after Christmas I expected it,” said Bell.
AstraZeneca AZN shares,
which have risen more than 4% so far this year, were down 0.57% in London on Wednesday.
Read: AstraZeneca – Oxford COVID shot is ‘safe and effective’, show complete test data
Data from AstraZeneca’s final-stage trials in the UK and Brazil, published in the medical journal The Lancet on December 9, showed that the candidate vaccine was 62% effective for trial participants who received two full doses, but 90 % for a subgroup received half, then a full dose.
The UK government has ordered 100 million doses of the AstraZeneca and Oxford vaccines, with 40 million doses available by the end of March 2021.
The approval would help speed up immunizations across the country, as it is a mutant variant of the coronavirus that could be 70% more contagious and which is probably behind a recent increase in cases of COVID-19 in London and southeastern England. England.
Read: A new Covid-19 strain is closing Europe. What do you need to know.
Since Sunday, more than 40 countries have closed their borders to arrivals in the United Kingdom to contain the spread of the new strain. However, at the end of Tuesday, France reopened its borders with the United Kingdom for travelers and truck drivers who presented proof of a negative coronavirus test in the past 72 hours.
AstraZeneca told Reuters on Tuesday that its candidate vaccine must be effective against the new strain of the coronavirus variant and said studies are underway to analyze the impact of the variant.
“AZD1222 (AstraZeneca candidate vaccine) contains the genetic material for the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein, and the changes in the genetic code seen in this new viral strain do not appear to change the structure of the spike protein,” a report by AstraZeneca voice told the news agency.
Read: The head of BioNTech says more tests are needed to see if the vaccine protects against the new strain COVID-19
AstraZeneca’s comments come after the chief executive of BioNTech BNTX,
said the vaccine of the German company, which was developed with the American partner Pfizer PFE,
needed more testing to establish whether the shot will be able to provide protection against the new variant.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is already being used in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and several other countries. It was approved by the European Medicines Authority and the European Commission on Tuesday, with deliveries scheduled to start on Saturday. Germany, Austria and Italy are among the countries that have announced that they plan to start vaccination from Sunday.