Millions of people across the UK at risk from Covid will be offered a single first
dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, with a booster jab within three months,
in a bid to return the country to some normality by the spring, the prime minister
has said.
Rollout of the Oxford vaccine will begin on 4 January following its approval for
emergency use by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority
(MHRA). The government hopes the vaccine, of which it has ordered 100m
doses, will transform prospects in the UK and check the spread of the rampaging
coronavirus variant which has caused cases to surge. Pharmacies as well as GPs
will be able to give the jabs to those at risk.
But the MHRA and the government’s advisory Joint Committee on Vaccinations
and Immunisation delivered a surprise by announcing approval of a regime that
was not trialled. Both the Oxford vaccine and the Pfizer/BioNTech jab which is
already in use will be given to people as one shot, followed by another up to 12
weeks later, in order to extend some protection to as many people as possible as
quickly as possible.
Boris Johnson said at a Downing Street press conference that the benefits from
the vaccine would kick in within 21 days. “What that means is we can vaccinate
and protect many more people in the coming weeks,” he said.
He hoped that by spring of 2021, many coronavirus restrictions would be able to
be lifted. “If we’re right and the vaccination programme does have the positive
effects that we think it can have, and I stress these are ifs, then clearly a lot of the
non-pharmaceutical interventions … will recede into the past,” he said. “We’ll be
able to do things very differently.”
The prime minister added that the public may need to carry on with “basic
disciplines” such as washing hands and wearing masks “for a while after”.
The approval of the vaccine by the MHRA after weeks of examining trial data was
greeted with excitement and relief by experts. The Pfizer/BioNTech
vaccine already in use needs to be stored in the long-term at -70C and is hard to
deploy. The Oxford vaccine, however, can be kept in a normal fridge at 2-8C and
is easily transported from UK factories, meaning it will not have to be kept in
central hospital and community hubs, enabling a swift rollout to GP practices and
care homes.
Amid the widespread praise for Oxford University and AstraZeneca in gaining UK
approval for a vaccine that is vital to the global prospects of ending the pandemic
because of its low cost and normal refrigeration, some experts were anxious at
the proposed mode of use. They said it was pragmatic to try to ensure as many
people as possible had a first shot, giving them some protection, but that there
were unanswered questions. These include the evidence for extending the time
between injections to 12 weeks, which could lead to some people not returning for
the second dose.
Pfizer/BioNTech said that their vaccine was not designed to be used in two shots
12 weeks apart. In a statement, the firms said there was no evidence the first shot
continued to work beyond three weeks.
“Data from the phase 3 study demonstrated that, although partial protection
from the vaccine appears to begin as early as 12 days after the first dose, two
doses of the vaccine are required to provide the maximum protection against the
disease, a vaccine efficacy of 95%. There are no data to demonstrate that
protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days,” they said.
The decision to approve the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine followed “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”, the DHSC said.
AstraZeneca said its vaccine would be made available to some of the poorest
regions of the world at a low cost and was not being manufactured for profit.
Talking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, its chief executive, Pascal Soriot,
said the company could provide the UK with as many as 2m doses a week and
would start shipping the first doses “today or tomorrow”.
He said: “Vaccination will start next week and we will get to 1m a week, and
beyond that a week, very rapidly. The good news with this is we are going to be
able to inject a lot of people with one dose very quickly, provide them with a
reasonably good dose of protection until they get their second dose two to three
months later. That will enable us to protect many more people because we can
wait two to three months for the second dose.”
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Matt Hancock, the UK health secretary, said every adult in the UK could
eventually be offered vaccination.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said: “Because we’ve got enough of this vaccine on
order to vaccinate the whole population – we’ve got 100m doses on order – add
that to the 30m doses of Pfizer and that’s enough for two doses for the entire
population.
“So I can now say with confidence that we can vaccinate everyone, except of
course for children because this vaccine has not been trialled on children, and
anyway children are much, much less likely to have symptoms from the disease.”
