London, Nov 27: The UK government said on Friday that it has formally asked the country’s independent medicines regulator to assess the suitability of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine for temporary supply, as soon as the company submits the necessary safety, quality and efficacy data.
The UK will be one of the first countries in the world to receive the vaccine, if authorised, with pharmaceutical major AstraZeneca expecting to have up to 4 million doses ready for the country by the end of the year and 40 million by the end of March 2021, the government said.
The move to formally seek approval follows the vaccine team declaring its efficacy in trials earlier this week. However, there have been some concerns raised around the way the results were collated.
“We have formally asked the regulator to assess the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, to understand the data and determine whether it meets rigorous safety standards. This letter is an important step towards deploying a vaccine as quickly as safely possible,” said UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, in reference to a formal letter to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA).
The MHRA is the UK’s independent regulator and has already been tasked with reviewing data from Pfizer/BioNTech to determine whether its COVID-19 vaccine meets “robust” standards of quality, safety, and effectiveness. (PTI)
