Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

UK Asks MHRA to Evaluate Oxford AstraZeneca Coronavirus Vaccine


Fri 27 Nov 2020 | 11:32 AM
Ahmad El-Assasy

The United Kingdom (UK) asked the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to evaluate the proposed Coronavirus vaccine. The Vaccine was developed by Oxford University in cooperation with AstraZeneca, to provide temporary supplies in a plan to start launching it before the end of the year.

AstraZeneca expects to have 4 million doses available in Britain by the end of next month. Health Secretary Matt Hancock aims to start rolling out before Christmas.

In a statement, Hancock said: “We have formally requested MHRA to evaluate the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine and determine whether it meets stringent safety standards.”

He added that this message is an important step towards launching a vaccine as quickly as possible safely.

The UK MHRA is already evaluating the vaccine in a rolling review with data on safety and efficacy coming in.

Hancock also asked the agency to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after it had been shown to be 95% effective.

Oxford and AstraZeneca published provisional results of efficacy on Monday, which showed that the vaccine can be 90% effective when given as a half dose followed by a full dose.

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Britain's chief science advisor said on Thursday that interim results showed the success of the Oxford vaccine, AstraZeneca.