After a long wait, the vaccine developed by researchers at Oxford and AstraZeneca has finally been approved for use in the UK.
This announcement was made by a spokesperson from the Department of health and Social Care, "The UK Government has today accepted the recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to authorise Oxford University/AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine for use. This follows rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by experts at the MHRA, which has concluded that the vaccine has met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness."
Just this week, CEO of AstraZeneca claimed that the vaccine has shown 100 percent effectiveness against extreme cases of the novel coronavirus and that after further testing and trials, they¡¯ve got the right dosage combination to bring the effectiveness close to that of Pfizer-BioNTech as well as Moderna.?
In case you didn¡¯t know, previous trial results showed the vaccine to be 70.4 percent effective against the novel coronavirus. Its effectiveness was at 62 percent when given two full doses of the vaccine, but 90 percent when a smaller group was given a half dose first and then a full dose later. This strange anomaly forced the vaccine makers to do further analysis to create a dose that was as effective as the competition.?
The distribution for this Oxford vaccine is expected to commence from Monday, January 4th, 2021. The UK government feels that over two million people could be given the life-saving dose by mid-January.
This approval is also a positive sign for India since the Oxford vaccine is authorised for manufacturing in India at Serum Institute¡¯s facilities, under the name of Covishield and is awaiting regulatory approval in the nation.?
As per previous statements by CEO Aadar Poonawala, the company has already made 40 million to 50 million doses of the vaccine and is ready to ramp up capacity to around 100 million a month by March.