Mass vaccination centres to speed up distribution of jab
‘Encouraging’ provisional data from British vaccine team as regulators work to speed up licensing process
DOZENS of mass vaccination centres will be set up and thousands of healthcare staff recruited to immunise people against coronavirus as soon as vaccines are available, it is understood.
One of the first locations for administering the Pfizer vaccine from midDecember has been confirmed as being in Derby, with talks under way with the Government to use the multi-use indoor arena and velodrome at Pride Park football stadium. Smaller centres will also be set up in each primary care network for those who are more at risk.
The centres are being sought as the Pfizer vaccine needs to be stored in dry ice at -75C (-103F), so it is impractical to deliver it to all GPS.
NHS England has instructed health leaders to find locations for mass vaccination sites, and is due to start a recruitment drive shortly, focusing on retired doctors, nurses and volunteers. In an NHS webinar seen by the Health Service Journal, Nikki Kanani, medical director of primary care at NHS England, said it was a “longer-term objective” for people to be immunised at local surgeries.
The Pfizer vaccine is the furthest ahead and yesterday Albert Bourla, the US company’s chief executive, said submissions would go to regulators within days and shipping would begin “a couple of hours” after being given the green
light. However, the Oxford vaccine could still catch up as scientists said they hoped to have results by Christmas. They confirmed that regulators were conducting a rolling review to speed up the approval process. Yesterday, the British team published new results showing the “Chadox1 ncov-2019” vaccine boosted immunity in older people.
Prof Sarah Gilbert, lead researcher of Oxford’s vaccine development programme, said the team had already been in contact with several regulators to speed up the usual process.
The Government also announced over-50s would be eligible for a free flu jab from GPS and pharmacies from Dec 1.
Last night, the Sun reported that a Government source had said as many as one million people a day could be vaccinated at peak deployment.
THE Oxford vaccine boosts immunity in older people and causes fewer side effects than f or younger groups, research has found.
Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, described the data as “a really encouraging set of findings”, while researchers said they were still hopeful that the final results would be in before Christmas.
While the US pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna have already published interim Phase 3 results – which proves that their vaccines protect people from coronavirus – the Oxford/astrazeneca team has so far only released Phase 2 data, which shows the jab boosts antibodies and T-cells.
Although the results indicate that the vaccine is likely to be protective, the trial data is currently “blinded”, meaning even the researchers do not know who has been immunised and who was given a placebo.
An independent panel will decide when the results are ready, and they are waiting to see 53 cases of coronavirus in the trial population before “unblinding” the study.
However, the results published in The Lancet yesterday do show that the vaccine produces a good immune response, including among the over70s, who are most at risk from the disease, which is a crucial milestone in whether the jab will be effective.
Older people were also found to have fewer side effects such as fatigue and muscle ache than younger participants.
Dr Maheshi Ramasamy, an investigator at the Oxford Vaccine Group and a consultant physician, said: “Older adults are a priority group for the Covid19 vaccination, because they are at increased risk of severe disease, but we know that they tend to have poorer vaccine responses.
“We were pleased to see that our vaccine was not only well tolerated in older adults, but also stimulated similar immune responses to those seen in younger volunteers.
“The next step will be to see if this translates into protection from the disease itself.”
The team is also hopeful it could still catch up with its American rivals and confirmed that regulators are conducting a “rolling review” to speed up the process.
Prof Andrew Pollard, chief investigator on the study at Oxford University, told a briefing that there was “not that much difference in timing” between the groups and that all of them still needed to get through regulators.
“We don’t know the results, we haven’t been able to look at them yet, but we are optimistic that we’ll be able to do that before Christmas,” he said.
“The next step after that is that we have to provide all of the information to the regulators so that they can assess the quality of the vaccine, and make decisions about licencing. There’s not very much difference in t i ming between the various different vaccines.”
Prof Sarah Gilbert, lead researcher of Oxford’s vaccine development programme, said that the team had already been in contact with several regulators to speed up the usual process.
“What we are doing to assist the regulators come to their decision as early as they possibly could, is what’s called a rolling review,” she said.
“We’re not waiting until we have the last piece of information that we need to apply for use of the vaccine and then providing it to the regulators.
“Instead, we’re providing the information available now, so that they can already start to look at that and assess it. That process has started with multiple regulators with the aim of being able to speed up the final process of the licence application once we have the final clinical data set and we hope that that should come in before Christmas.”
The Government has placed orders for 100 million doses of the jab – enough to vaccinate most of Britain’s population – should it receive regulatory approval. The latest results show that two doses will be needed for each person.
‘There’s not very much difference in timing between the various vaccines’