Filenews 12 March 2021
Cheap, easy to store, developed by a virus that causes infections in chimpanzees... These are some of the five things we need to know about the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine.
As it became known, the use of this vaccine was suspended as a precaution today in Denmark and Norway. The Italian medicines regulator has also announced that it is suspending the administration of AstraZeneca vaccines from the batch in use in Austria. Austria has discontinued the use of vaccines from a specific batch of AstraZeneca for the duration of the investigation into a death from thrombosis and an incident of pulmonary embolism.
Four other countries - Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Latvia - have discontinued the use of vaccines in this batch while investigations continue.
On the other side, Sweden and Spain continue to vaccinate AstraZeneca, as does France.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced yesterday that there is so far no evidence linking the AstraZeneca vaccine to the two cases in Austria.
The five things we need to know about the AstraZeneca vaccine
Developed from a common virus in chimpanzees
This vaccine was developed by Oxford University researchers along with the British giant AstraZeneca.
It is a "viral vector" vaccine: it takes as support another virus (an adenovirus common to chimpanzees) that has been genetically weakened and modified to prevent the new coronavirus from reproducing in the human body.
The way of delivering genetic material to cells, ordering them to attack SARS-CoV-2, was presented as a "Trojan Horse".
Cheap and practical
The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine has the advantage of being cheap (almost €2.50 per dose, with variations depending on the costs of local producers). At the request of the University of Oxford, AstraZeneca undertook not to profit from this product.
This vaccine is also easy to store: it can be kept at refrigerator temperature, i.e. between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, unlike Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines that can only be stored in the long term at a very low temperature (-20 degrees Celsius for the first, -70 degrees Celsius for the second). This facilitates vaccination on a large scale.
Efficiency
According to AstraZeneca, the vaccine is effective at 70% (compared to over 90% for Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines), a result validated by the scientific journal The Lancet.
In the first published results, variations in dosage-related efficacy associated with an error had sown doubts and provoked criticism, prompting the company to conduct additional studies.
Its effectiveness in people over the age of 65 was also questioned in Europe, in the absence of sufficient evidence, before studies appear reassuring. Countries such as Germany and Italy have finally allowed its use for this age group, hoping to speed up their vaccination campaigns.
A study carried out by health authorities in England specifically showed protection between 60% and 73% against symptomatic forms in people over the age of 70, with a single dose.
Suspected blood clots
Denmark today announced the suspension of the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine as a precaution due to fears of blood clots in vaccinated individuals. The National Health Service noted that there is currently no link between the vaccine and clots.
An AstraZeneca spokesperson assured that "vaccine safety was widely studied in phase 3 clinical trials and peer-reviewed data confirm that the vaccine was generally well tolerated."
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced yesterday that there is so far no evidence linking the AstraZeneca vaccine to the two cases in Austria. The EMA announced that the incidence of thromboembolic events in people who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine is not higher than the incidence observed in the general population, with 22 such cases among the three million people who had received the vaccine by March 9.
Austria had announced on Monday that it had suspended the use of a batch of vaccines produced by the British laboratory, following the death of a 49-year-old nurse resulting from "severe blood clotting disorders" a few days after it was administered.
Four other European countries, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Luxembourg, immediately suspended the use of doses from the same batch, which was delivered to 17 countries and included one million vaccines.
Delays in deliveries
The vaccine was originally approved by the UK, which ordered 100 million doses. In the European Union, delays in delivery have provoked strong criticism in Europe, as the company has provided the UK with the promised stock.
AstraZeneca had announced in January that it could not deliver in the first quarter despite a third of the 120 million doses originally promised to the 27 EU member states.
Italy recently blocked the export of 250,000 doses, citing in particular the "prolonged shortage" and "supply delays".
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that other countries could block exports. She also stated that AstraZeneca has delivered only "less than 10%" of the doses ordered between December and March.
Source: iefimerida.gr
