Up to 90% effective coronavirus vaccine by AstraZeneca and Oxford

Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech And modern Each reports a 95% effective vaccine in clinical trials. Direct comparisons with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are complex due to the trial design, but the vaccine is likely to be cheaper and does not need to be stored at sub-zero temperatures, making it a more realistic option in many parts of the world. There is a possibility that

Peter Piot, director of the London School of Economics and Tropical Medicine, who worked hard to fight AIDS, said the positive results from the three vaccine candidates cannot be overestimated.

“2020 will be remembered for covid-19, the blockade, and many lives lost in the US elections. Science needs to be added to this list,” said Piot, “orbiting covid-19. The only way to get rid of it is to have multiple effective and safe vaccines that can be mass-deployed worldwide. “

Hildegud CJ Eltor, a vaccine expert at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, said: In addition to the results of Pfizer and Moderna, “This virus is very easy to defeat. 90-95% efficacy is what we dream of against the flu virus, You can never get it. “

The Oxford-AstraZeneca team said in a video conference with journalists that if subjects were given half the dose and then the full dose one month later, the candidate provided 90% protection against the virus. It was. Efficacy was reduced when subjects received the full dose twice a month — 62% —. Therefore, the interim results were on average 70% effective.

Andrew Pollard, a senior researcher at the Oxford trial, said the findings show that vaccines can save many lives.

“Excitingly, one of our dosing regimens can be about 90% effective, and with this dosing regimen, more people could be vaccinated with a planned vaccine supply. There is, “he said.

The UK has pre-ordered 100 million doses. It covers most of the population with one and a half doses per person. The United States has ordered 300 million.

The results have not yet been peer reviewed or published and will be scrutinized by regulators. Many questions remain, including whether the vaccine can reduce the transmission of the virus by asymptomatic people. This affects how quickly people can stop wearing masks. Also, it is unknown how long the vaccine immunity will last. This is an important issue.

Oxford Principal Investigator Sara Gilbert warned that doses and half regimens need to be studied more closely to fully understand. However, she said the first half of the dose could be enough to stimulate a person’s immune system, and a second booster encourages the body to create a strong defense against illness and infection.

AstraZeneca and Oxford are conducting Phase 3 clinical trials worldwide, with the latest data from an interim analysis based on 131 coronavirus infections in the UK and Brazil of 10,000 volunteers, half vaccinated. , Half have a placebo.

The company said it would immediately present the results to UK healthcare product regulators, seek approval to fine-tune clinical trials in the United States, and further evaluate half-dose shots and subsequent boosters.

The vaccine is already in production, so if approved, the first 4 million doses will be ready in December and 40 million doses could be given in the first quarter of 2021, company executives said. Said. By spring, the company and its global partners in India, Brazil, Russia and the United States could start 100 to 200 million doses a month.

“If all goes well, most of the deployment will be in the New Year,” said Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health.

In a statement to Congress, Prime Minister Boris Johnson emphasizes that the vaccine is “closer than ever to release from the virus and this is not a never-ending pandemic. Great British science. We can be very captivated by today’s news that has yielded great results. “

AstraZeneca shares fell 2% on the London Stock Exchange on Monday, but the global market rebounded with optimistic vaccine news.

AstraZeneca said on Monday that vaccinated participants did not develop severe cases or require hospitalization. The drug company also said that no “significant safety events” have been reported in connection with the vaccine. This was usually “well tolerated” by participants, regardless of dose level or age.

The vaccine uses a harmless cold virus that normally infects chimpanzees to deliver the genetic code of spike proteins scattered outside the coronavirus to cells in the body. It teaches the body’s immune system to recognize and block real viruses.

The reason why the first half of the regimen worked well is still unclear, but Ertl’s ability to develop a defense system that blocks the harmless viruses used by the body’s immune system to provide spikes. The code for the protein mentioned that may be related. Giving lower initial doses may weaken their defenses and make the vaccine more effective.

Several other vaccines in the later stages of development use similar technology, leveraging harmless viruses to provide payloads and teach the immune system how to fight the real thing. Johnson & Johnson Vaccine, Russian vaccine Developed by the Gamalaya Institute, the vaccine is CanSino Biologics in China..

Although the results published by AstraZeneca show that it is slightly less effective than Pfizer and Moderna, the vaccine can be stored and transported for up to 6 months under normal refrigeration conditions. This makes deployment much easier than Pfizer’s vaccine, which needs to be stored at minus 70 ° C, and Modana’s vaccine, which only stabilizes for 30 days in a refrigerated state and then needs to freeze at minus 20 ° C. There is a possibility. ..

The Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine was first developed by Gilbert and her team in Oxford in a small laboratory run on a small budget. The university invested £ 1 million ($ 1.3 million), searched for a manufacturing partner, and then settled in AstraZeneca.

“We wanted to keep the pandemic out of profit,” said Louise Richardson, vice president of the university, and made the vaccine widely available. “And it’s not just wealthy and first world.”

Scientists said it looked like a race or competition among front-line vaccine developers, but could not alone produce the millions of doses needed to end the pandemic.

“We don’t have enough supplies across the globe,” Pollard said, and the important message is that today there are at least three highly effective and safe vaccines that seem to work well among the elderly. Is to look like. Manufactured using a variety of technologies, it ensures the fastest route to produce the billions of doses required.

Pollard says it’s “unknown why” different vaccines produce different results, and he and the scientific community are complete from all clinical trials to fully understand what’s happening. He said he was waiting for the dataset. He also stated that different studies use different endpoints to explain their effectiveness.

“At this point, we can’t fully explain the difference,” Pollard said. “It’s important to understand what everyone is measuring.”

Johnson reported from Boulder, Colorado, and Antonia Nouri Farzan of Washington contributed to the report.