AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine authorization in UK also good news for US

AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine was first authorized for use in the United Kingdom on Wednesday, a move that also provides hope for the United States to gain another tool in knocking back the pandemic.

“It has been shown to be effective, well-tolerated, simple to administer and is supplied by AstraZeneca at no profit. We would like to thank our many colleagues at AstraZeneca, Oxford University, the U.K. government and the tens of thousands of clinical trial participants,” AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said in a statement.

The first doses were released in Britain on Wednesday so that vaccinations can begin early in the new year, according to the company.

Dr. Mark Poznansky, director of the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center at Massachusetts General Hospital said the news is “good for the U.K., good for the U.S., good for the human race in general.”

“We need every shot on goal that we can get,” said Poznansky. He said vaccine developments abroad are watched closely here in the U.S., and an unprecedented level of global communication is taking place as a result of the pandemic.

The company said it is currently seeking Emergency Use Listing from the World Health Organization for an accelerated pathway to vaccine availability in low- and middle-income countries.

The two-dose vaccine, which uses an adenovirus platform different than that of Moderna or Pfizer, was shown to be 70.4% effective at preventing symptomatic coronavirus. It was developed in collaboration with Oxford University and can be used in adults 18 and older.

AstraZeneca’s vaccine is cheaper and easier to store than the mRNA vaccines and does not require cold chain freezing, making it more accessible to rural areas.

However, vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, which are currently the only two authorized for use in the U.S., have a higher efficacy rate at about 95% for both.

Vaccine news also rippled through China on Wednesday as a Chinese drugmaker said its coronavirus vaccine was found to be 79.3% effective at preventing infection in preliminary data from the final round of testing.

The two-sentence statement by the state-owned Sinopharm unit that developed the vaccine, the Beijing Biological Products Institute Ltd., gave no additional details.

Also Wednesday, another developer, Sinovac Biotech Ltd., signed an agreement to build a production facility in Beijing for a coronavirus vaccine with a planned annual capacity of 1 billion doses, the newspaper Beijing Youth News reported.

Sinopharm is one of at least five Chinese developers that are in a global race to create vaccines for the disease that has killed more than 1.7 million people.

Herald wire services contributed to this report.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2L8Ayd2