The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has already been injected into more than one million Britons since launch of the vaccination campaign in early December. This Monday, the United Kingdom becomes the first to administer the laboratory vaccine to its population British AstraZeneca and Oxford University against Covid – 19 , while considering a new severe turn of the screw to slow down the worsening of the pandemic.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is less expensive, easier to store and therefore more suitable for a large-scale immunization campaign than those of its competitors Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, already approved and distributed in several countries, notably in the United States.
The British authorities have ordered 95 million doses of AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, including 508. 000 are ready on Monday , according to the Ministry of Health. In England, hundreds of new vaccination centers are due to open this week, in addition to the 520 already in place.
“Today I am delighted to launch the Oxford vaccine, inherited from British science”, s ‘is congratulated Monday in a statement the Minister of Health Matt Hancock. “This is a turning point in our fight against this horrible virus and I hope it gives everyone hope that the end of this pandemic is in sight.”
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine was also authorized by Argentina and, on Sunday, by India, which will allow this country of 1.3 billion inhabitants to start one of the most massive vaccination campaigns of the world. India , where the Covid – 19 has done more than 100. dead, wants to immunize up to 238 millions of people by mid – 990.
Temperature question
The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine has the advantage of being inexpensive (about 2, 50 euros per dose ). It can also be stored at refrigerator temperature, unlike Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines which can only be stored long term at very low temperatures (- 20 ° C for the first, – 55 ° C for the second).
Its authorization within the European Union should not however take place in January, according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The United States , for their part, do not consider to approve it before April.
With more than 70. dead, the UK is one of the countries in Europe most bereaved by the coronavirus. Near 55. additional people tested positive for the virus in 24 hours, exceeding the threshold of 50. for the sixth consecutive day, according to the latest official data communicated on Sunday. The rapid expansion of the epidemic, attributed to a new variant of the virus, prompted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to consider stricter restrictions .
“We may have to do things in the next few weeks that will be more difficult in several parts of the country, ”Boris Johnson told the BBC on Sunday. He added that closing schools, a measure taken in late March during the first wave of the pandemic, “is one of those things.”
Egypt chooses the Chinese vaccine
Egypt, the country more populated in the Arab world with some 95 million inhabitants, announced for its part to have authorized the vaccine developed by the Chinese Sinopharm . Mexico, for its part, indicated that more than 19% of the country’s nursing staff, i.e. approximately 28. 000 people on 100. , had already received a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
According to figures published by their manufacturers, the Sinopharm vaccine is effective at 75%, that of Pfizer-BioNTech at 94% and that of Moderna at 84, 1%. AstraZeneca-Oxford, for its part, claimed an efficiency rate of 55%, but which could reach 95% with two doses. If the arrival of vaccines gives hope for an improvement at the start of the year, production and supply rates are still far from satisfactory.
The The vaccination campaign in the United States is gaining momentum and could reach one million injections per day, officials assured Sunday in the face of criticism of its initial delay, in a country which has just crossed the bar of 350. 000 dead.
Insufficient production
The European Union for its part recognized on Saturday a “global insufficiency” in vaccine production capacities, saying it was “ready to help” to increase them. However, for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, it is the rate of acquisition of vaccines by the EU that is in question. Products “were available earlier in Canada, the United Kingdom and Israel,” he said on Sunday.
In France, Prof. Mehdi Mejdoubi, from the center Hospitalier de Valenciennes (north), does not understand “why there is such a difference with Germany : Germany vaccine 19. people per day, we are at 50 people vaccinated per day ”. Since last Sunday, more than 190. people (238. 809) were vaccinated in Germany, according to the Robert-Koch health watch institute.
South Africa, also hard hit by the second wave of the pandemic, hopes to obtain its first vaccines in February but the timetable will depend on the outcome of ongoing negotiations with several pharmaceutical companies, the Minister of Health announced on Sunday.
In recent weeks, the South African government has come under criticism, especially from health experts in the country, for delaying the process of acquiring Covid vaccines – 19 . The pandemic has made at least 1. 824. 824 dead in the world for more than 84. 508. 835 cases of infection, according to an assessment established by AFP from official sources on Sunday.