Category Archives: AstraZeneca

Oxford Covid vaccine almost as effective against Kent variant, trials suggest

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Scientists say it offers only slightly lower protection compared with original Covid

The Covid vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca is nearly as effective against the Kent variant as it is against older forms of the virus, according to preliminary research results.

Researchers analysed swabs from trial volunteers who developed asymptomatic or symptomatic infections to determine which variant of the virus they had caught after receiving the vaccine or a control jab.

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Single dose of AstraZeneca vaccine could cut transmission by 67%

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One jab could also offer protection of up to 76% for up to 12 weeks, a new study shows

One dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine provides sustained protection against Covid for at least three months and cuts transmission of the virus by two-thirds, according to research that appears to support the UK’s decision to delay booster shots.

Analysis of fresh data from three trials found that the first shot conferred on average 76% protection against symptomatic infections from three weeks until 90 days, and reduced transmission of the disease by 67%.

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How EU’s floundering vaccine effort hit a fresh crisis with exports row

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A new rule on exports from Europe suddenly blew up into a threat to the withdrawal agreement – and a hasty backtrack

It started with a tweet by a blogger at 4.36pm on Friday. It ended with the prime ministers of the UK and Ireland warning the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, during late night calls, that she had put peace at risk by effectively seeking to erect a vaccine border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

“OK, I’m not usually on here any more, but I’m making an exception because this is very interesting: the EU’s regulation on export controls for vaccines *does* include vaccines going to Northern Ireland, and the EU is invoking Article 16 of the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol,” @dijdowell had tweeted. “I really didn’t have Article 16 being used *by the EU* in the first month of the Protocol’s operation on my list of predictions for 2021. I would be fascinated – *fascinated* – to know what the Irish Government makes of setting this precedent.”

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‘We had to go it alone’: how the UK got ahead in the Covid vaccine race

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Early partnership between Oxford and AstraZeneca, plus upfront funding, proved vital headstart

When it became clear the China coronavirus outbreak might lead to a global pandemic, Oxford University’s life scientists convened a crisis meeting. It took place on Thursday 30 January last year, and if the rest of the world hadn’t yet realised the potential consequences of what was unfolding in Wuhan, they had.

Around the table in the Nuffield Department of Medicine were experts from in and around the university, gathered for a moment they had feared would one day come.

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AstraZeneca must deliver vaccine doses from UK to EU, says Von der Leyen

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Commission president says company legally obliged to use UK plants to help deliver on order

Ursula von der Leyen has said it is “crystal clear” that AstraZeneca is bound by its contract to deliver coronavirus vaccine doses produced in the UK to the EU to make up for a shortfall in production in Belgium.

The European commission president dismissed the arguments of AstraZeneca’s chief executive, Pascal Soirot, that the British government had a first claim on doses produced in Oxford and Staffordshire.

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Australia in talks with WHO and Europe over ‘certainty’ of Covid vaccine supplies

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Health minister Greg Hunt wants to ensure vaccine doses reach Australia but acknowledges potential impact of ‘supply shocks’

The Australian government will make urgent representations to the European Union after it threatened to block companies from exporting doses of the Covid-19 vaccine amid problems with AstraZeneca’s international supply chain.

The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, confirmed on Friday the government would approach both the World Health Organization and the EU to ensure “certainty” for Australia’s vaccine supplies after the European Commission threatened to impose export bans on companies manufacturing the shots.

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EU could block millions of Covid vaccine doses from entering UK

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European commission says new mechanism will give national regulators power to refuse exports

Millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine could be blocked from entering Britain from the EU within days after Brussels said it had to respond to shortages emerging in member states.

Following reports of a lack of doses across the bloc, the European commission announced plans to give national regulators the power to reject export requests. The development raises concerns over the continued flow of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, for which the UK has a 40m-dose order, from its plant in Belgium.

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Why has Germany advised against Oxford/AstraZeneca jab for over-65s?

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Explainer: Move attributed to ‘insufficient data’ but experts say no evidence vaccine doesn’t work

German authorities have advised that the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab should not be given to those aged 65 or above. We take a look at why, and what experts make of it.

Why has Germany advised the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab should only be used in adults under 65?

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Britain and EU clash over claims to UK-produced Covid vaccine

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EU health commissioner dismisses AstraZeneca argument it is contractually obliged to supply UK first

Britain is on a collision course with the European Union over vaccine shortages after Brussels refused to accept that people in the UK have first claim on Oxford/AstraZeneca doses produced in local plants.

The EU’s health commissioner outright dismissed on Wednesday an argument made by Pascal Soriot, the Anglo-Swedish company’s chief executive, that he was contractually obliged to supply the UK first.

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Why the EU and AstraZeneca are stuck in a Covid vaccines row

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Explainer: AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot gives insight into ‘glitches’ that constrained production

The chief executive of AstraZeneca has dismissed suggestions that the UK is being unfairly prioritised for Covid-19 vaccine doses, in a wide-ranging interview revealing “glitches” that have constrained production.

Pascal Soriot offered the deepest insight yet into a scientific process that has been dragged into the political sphere, as leaders in Brussels and several EU capitals voiced anger that Europe will not get the vaccine as quickly as hoped.

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Head of AstraZeneca confirms UK has prior claim on vaccine

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Chief executive of pharmaceutical giant says the firm will honour UK’s earlier contract despite EU anger over shortfall

AstraZeneca’s chief executive has insisted the UK will come first for vaccines as he rejected calls to divert doses to the European Union following a breakdown in supply.

Amid a growing row, Pascal Soriot, the French head of the pharmaceutical giant, said the UK was benefiting from being early to sign a contract for 100m doses.

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AstraZeneca vaccine may not be given to older people, says EU medicines chief

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European Medicines Agency approval could stipulate age range, suggests Emer Cooke

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine may be authorised only for younger people in Europe, because there is insufficient data on how well it works in the over-65s, the head of the regulatory body has suggested.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to authorise the AstraZeneca vaccine at the end of this week, a month after it was approved in the UK.

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Why experts say there is no basis to claims in Germany about efficacy of AstraZeneca vaccine

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Analysis: Drug company and scientific partners at Oxford University have strongly pushed back against German press report

A row has broken out after German newspapers suggested the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine might have a lower efficacy among the over-65s. Below we take a look at the claims, and whether we should be concerned.

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EU means business over Covid vaccine exports, says Von der Leyen

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Commission president says firms must deliver on orders after AstraZeneca warns of shortfall

The EU “means business”, Ursula von der Leyen has said, as the bloc doubled down on plans for tighter monitoring of vaccine exports to countries outside of the union, such as the UK.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, the president of the European commission said the EU had invested billions and “companies must now deliver” to the 27 member states.

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Pharmaceutical giants not ready for next pandemic, report warns

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Ten of the world’s most infectious diseases identified by the WHO not being catered for by drug firms

The world’s biggest pharmaceutical firms are little prepared for the next pandemic despite a mounting response to the Covid-19 outbreak, an independent report has warned.

Jayasree K Iyer, executive director of the Netherlands-based Access to Medicine Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation funded by the UK and Dutch governments and others, highlighted an outbreak of the Nipah virus in China, with a fatality rate of up to 75%, as potentially the next big pandemic risk.

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EU threatens to block Covid vaccine exports amid AstraZeneca shortfall

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Bloc may receive only half of purchased 100m doses in first quarter of the year

The EU has threatened to block exports of coronavirus vaccines to countries outside the bloc, after AstraZeneca was accused of failing to give a satisfactory explanation for a huge shortfall of promised doses to member states.

The pharmaceutical company’s new distribution plans were said to be “unacceptable” after it “surprisingly” informed the European commission on Friday that there would be significant shortfalls on the original schedule.

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I’ve had my first vaccine jab. It gives me hope of liberation… but not yet

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Exactly a year after his first story about coronavirus, our science editor received the Pfizer injection last week. Here he reflects on a remarkable scientific achievement

I marked a grim anniversary in an unexpected manner last week. On 18 January last year, I wrote my first story about a mysterious disease that had struck Wuhan, in China, and which was now spreading around the world. More than two million individuals have since died of Covid-19, almost 100,000 of them in the UK.

Remarkably, 12 months to the day that the Observer published my story, I was given my first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, allowing me to follow nearly six million other newly immunised UK residents who are set to gain protection against a disease that has brought the planet to a standstill. It was a rare, comforting experience after a year of unremitting sadness and gloom.

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World’s poor need action, not Covid ‘vaccine nationalism’, say experts

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Nations outbidding each other creates an ‘immoral race towards the abyss’

Pharmaceutical companies should do more to transfer vaccine technology to prevent the poorest countries falling behind in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, according to an expert.

The warning came from Dag-Inge Ulstein, the co-chair of the global council trying to speed up access to Covid vaccines for the world’s poor, known as the Act (Access to Covid-19 Tools) Accelerator. Ulstein, Norway’s international development minister, oversees the drive to ensure vaccines reach the poor – the Covax programme.

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EU’s Covid vaccination debacle is down to institutional inflexibility

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Supply delays underline there was no legal or economic justification for central planning

A storm is raging over the EU’s failure to have ordered more of the approved Covid-19 vaccines ahead of time. Stéphane Bancel, the chief executive of the US pharmaceutical company Moderna, which gained approval for its vaccine shortly after Pfizer/BioNTech, claims that the EU has relied too much on “vaccines from its own laboratories”.

Did the European commission prioritise supporting its own pharmaceutical industry over protecting human lives? In fact, matters are not as simple as that. Contrary to what Bancel wants us to believe, the EU has actually ordered too little of its own vaccine. After all, the vaccine that is being administered most widely across the west was developed by a German company, BioNTech, and thus comes from the EU (though it was tested and partly produced in partnership with Pfizer in the US and with Fosun Pharma in China).

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Global immunisation: low-income countries rush to access Covid vaccine supply

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Despite efforts to procure Covid vaccine, some nations will only vaccinate 20% of population

There are triumphant scenes as lorries leave a vaccine plant in Pune, India, loaded with boxes that will prevent thousands of deaths. Adar Poonawalla, the owner and chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, poses on the tailgate of a truck, making the most of his company’s “proud and historic” moment as the potential saviour of the nation – and even a large chunk of the world.

Poonawalla’s factory, the largest vaccine manufacturing complex in the world, is the best hope for immunisation for people in Africa and some low-income countries elsewhere – which could save them from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. The Serum Institute has been contracted to supply the UN-backed Covax initiative, which subsidises low-income countries, with 200m doses of Covid-19 vaccines with an option on 900m more.

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