100 million doses of Oxford vaccine ‘approved this week’
Ministers are considering a ‘less effective’ one-dose jab in race against mutant strain
THE groundbreaking Oxford vaccine is expected to be approved for use within days – giving Britain a massive New Year boost in the fight against coronavirus.
There is growing optimism within the Government that the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will give the green light to roll out the vaccine before the end of this week.
Britain has pre-ordered 100 million doses of the drug, which has been developed by Oxford University with the help of the pharma giant AstraZeneca.
The first of 40 million doses of another vaccine – manufactured by Pfizer – was given to British patient Margaret Keenan, 91, earlier this month. But the Oxford vaccine is cheaper and easier to distribute because it can be stored at normal fridge temperatures rather than the minus 70C required for the one Mrs Keenan had.
Football stadiums, conference centres and racecourses are expected to become makeshift vaccination hubs within days of the regulator granting approval, allowing the Government to build quickly and massively on the 800,000 people who, according to the Prime Minister, have had the Pfizer jab.
Officials hope eventually to be vaccinating up to two million people a week and to have reached
‘Plan is to vaccinate 20 million by March
the 20 million most vulnerable people by March.
However, amid concern about the recent appearance of more transmittable mutations of the Covid-19 virus, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the Government is examining whether to give people a single dose of the vaccine – rather than the recommended two jabs given 21 days apart in the case of the Pfizer drug and four weeks apart for the Oxford vaccine.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair last week called for such an approach to ‘radically accelerate’ the vaccination programme.
Pfizer says two doses are needed to provide the maximum protection, but Professor David Salisbury, who was in charge of immunisation at the Health Department until 2003, said: ‘You give one dose, you get 91 per cent [protection]. You give two doses and you get 95 per cent. You are only gaining four per cent for giving the second dose.
‘With current circumstances, I would strongly urge using as many first doses as you possibly can for risk groups and, only after you have done all of that, come back with second doses.’
But Prof Salisbury did acknowledge that administering only one dose of the Oxford vaccine would pose more difficulties because it has lower efficacy than Pfizer’s.
There are also questions over the dosage regime for the Oxford vaccine after researchers found those given a half dose followed by a full dose four weeks later were better protected than those given two full doses. The MHRA is understood to be considering which of the two approaches to approve.
Authorisation for the Oxford vaccine would be particularly welcome after the emergence of two new highly infectious mutant strains of the virus. The first – called VUI-202012/01 – was detected in southern England in September.
It is now thought to account for up to two-thirds of positive tests in recent weeks in the South East and the East of England – and triggered the decision to put most of southern England into tier 4 restrictions.
It has also prompted more than 50 countries to impose travel restrictions. Spain yesterday confirmed four cases of the variant in Madrid which involved people who had recently travelled from the UK.
The news came shortly after France announced that a man from the city of Tours had tested positive for the mutant virus after returning from London on December 19.
Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Australia have also reported cases of the variant which is 70 per cent more transmissable.
There is also evidence that the strain is ‘particularly marked in children’, according to a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In addition, there is considerable anxiety about a second mutant strain from South Africa. Two cases have been identified in England – one in London, the other in the North West. Health Secretary Matt Hancock last week pleaded with anyone who had returned from South Africa within the past fortnight to quarantine.
As experts at Porton Down, the Government’s top secret research laboratories, carried out tests on both strains, South Africa’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize warned that ‘young, previously healthy people are now becoming very sick’.
Dr Susan Hopkins, of Public Health England, said both strains look to be more transmissible’, but admitted experts are ‘still learning’ about the South African variant.