The director of the Oxford Vaccine Group said that two years ago he was starting to panic. One of the greatest medical missions in modern history was launched by him and Dame Sarah Gilbert. Their seemingly impossible task to design, develop and deliver a vaccine from scratch to slow the advance of a lethal pandemic was completed in less than a year.
The status of their jab, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, looks very different today. Half of the population in the UK have had their vaccine, restrictions have ended, and cases and hospitalisations are not expected to go up. According to estimates, the jab has saved more than a million lives, but its reputation has been battered by a toxic mix of misinformation and miscommunication. Two years after Pollard, Gilbert and their teams first began making the miracle jab now known as Vaxzevria or Covishield, it has not been seen in the US.
The rest of the world is likely to be saved by the final act of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19. 3 billion people have yet to receive a first dose of the Covid jab, but 2.6 billion doses have been distributed to 183 countries. There are new cases of the Omicron variant in less-vaccinated areas. In December, daily cases were three times the 600,000 daily average. Cases are rising in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, and the low cost and ease with which the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine could be deployed to these regions, as well as the more accessible parts of the world.
It is important for our own defence to protect people elsewhere. He believes the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab will build a global wall of immunity in 2022, because of the current vaccine gap.
The last two years had not been easy, Pollard admitted, but he took huge satisfaction from the team of boffins that developed the jab that has been so widely used. Pollard was critical of the politicians who pushed the nonsense.
The European Medicines Agency approved the vaccine for all ages, but many countries chose not to use it for elderly people. The Oxford/AstraZeneca cause has not been helped by delayed deliveries and lower efficacy rates.
The jab's bumpy ride has been suggested by other scientists as being caused by those involved with its development. Prof Paul Hunter of the University of East Anglia told the Guardian that the lack of older people in the trials was a big issue. Reflecting on them this week, he was struck by the fact that they had no elderly initially, and few BAME participants.
Hunter and Tang are involved in the dosing debacle. The volunteers were only given half-strength doses. The half-dose jab given to about 3000 British patients proved to be more effective than the full dose given to up to 20,000 Brazilians. The efficacy rate in Britain was over 80%. When compared with the results of trials by Pfizer and Moderna, the overall rate of 70% was so confusing.
March 2021, was the final straw for some. The UK now favors other jabs as boosters because of a link between the jab and rare blood clot. In December, Menelas Pangalos, the executive vice-president for research and development, said the company hoped to change its recipe. The company has stopped looking at modifying the vaccine because it hasn't found the cause, according to the Guardian.
Two years after the jab's inception, the chief executive of AstraZeneca insists he has no regrets.
According to a data analysis for the Guardian by Airfinity, the jab is already reaching every corner of the globe. 166m have gone to Brazil, 84m to Mexico, 60m to Vietnam, 54m to the Philippines, 19m to Nigeria, and 16m to Iran. Germany and France have quietly accepted 31m and 10m doses, once the sources of slipshod reporting and false claims about the jab.
Tang says the vaccine can still play a big role despite the early hype. Rivals have made tens of billions of dollars, but Pollard thinks that AstraZeneca is morally brave for ignoring the commercial incentive to sell first to the rich. The vaccine will continue to be given to low-income nations on a not-for-profit basis.
According to a second Airfinity data analysis for the Guardian, a further 1.4 billion doses will be delivered by the end of the year. Linley expects some of the 25 facilities in 15 countries to reduce their output after that.
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