The other day, the head of the Public Health Center, Igor Kuzyn, noted that Ukraine will most likely receive the Astra Zeneka coronavirus vaccine. This is an Anglo-Swedish biopharmaceutical company that is developing its drug with Oxford University.
ElitExpert found out what kind of vaccine it is and how it differs from other drugs.
British child
The working name of the Astra Zeneka vaccine is AZD1222. The company worked on it by order of the British government. By 2020, Astra Zeneka promised to produce 100 million doses, but made only 4 million and stopped production. Now the British authorities expect that by the beginning of the summer of 2021, 30 million people will be immunized with this vaccine - the elderly and those with chronic diseases. But for this, the drug needs to be refined.
And there is something to work on. During the tests, severe side effects were recorded. One female volunteer was diagnosed with transverse myelitis (inflammation of the spinal cord). The second subject — a 28-year-old man — died.
In addition, there are questions about its effectiveness - it reaches 70%.
At the moment, AZD1222 is sent for revision. The vaccine was close to the end of the third phase of testing and applied for registration in Great Britain. But due to insufficiently high efficiency, the company returned to the second phase of testing.
Combination with the Russian vaccine
As mentioned above, the AZD1222 vaccine was sent for revision. However, this time not only British, but also Russian scientists will be engaged in it. Gamalea National Research Center, Anglo-Swedish biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Russian Direct Investment Fund and R-Pharm adopted a memorandum on cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus.
After that, the director of the Center named after Gamalea Alexander Ginzburg announced the start of joint clinical trials of the combination of the Russian "Sputnik V" and the drug AZD1222.
What will be the essence of cooperation? The participants of the memorandum stated that ready-made vaccines will be combined. For example, the test subject will be injected with chimpanzee adenovirus from Astra Zeneca for the first injection, and human adenovirus from Sputnik V for the second injection, which, according to scientists, will increase effectiveness in the fight against COVID-19.
Thus, a Russian drug, which was refused by the Ukrainian government, can enter Ukraine. Another question is whether Kyiv will refuse this vaccine again, but then Ukrainians will again be left without medicine for the coronavirus.
