London, Aug 16 : Covid-19 and flu vaccines could eventually be mixed into one injection to save time and make future booster programmes more convenient, says a vaccine producer in the UK.
Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) CEO Matthew Duchars said that the facility is looking at combining the two for future roll-outs.
“It will save a lot of time and it would be a lot more convenient to just give one shot, so it is something that we and vaccine developers and producers will be looking at,” Duchars was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.
“Let’s say we do need to give a seasonal vaccine, and people need one shot for flu, and one shot for Covid and another for something else… If you can put them all into one, then that’s obviously preferable,” he added.
As per the report, the Oxford-based VMIC was announced in 2018 as the UK’s first-ever vaccine-making hub and was due to open in 2022.
The government said at the time it would invest 66 million euros in the centre, but it had been granted 215 million euros in funding by March and was fast-tracked to help in the fight against Covid-19.
It was founded by the University of Oxford, the Imperial College London, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the report said.
Once up and running, the VMCI will churn out 70 million doses in as little as four months — nearly 600,000 doses a day, it added.(IANS)