{"id":91597,"date":"2020-09-11T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T02:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=91597"},"modified":"2020-09-11T10:00:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T02:00:42","slug":"covid-19-vaccine-still-possible-this-year-despite-trial-pause-astrazeneca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=91597","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Vaccine still possible this year, despite trial pause – AstraZeneca"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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LONDON, Sept 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Drugs giant AstraZeneca on Thursday said a Covid-19 vaccine could still be available by as early as the end of this year, despite a randomised clinical trial in the UK being paused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could still have a vaccine by the end of this year, early next year,\u201d the company\u2019s chief executive Pascal Soriot said, adding it depended on how fast regulators moved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AstraZeneca announced Wednesday it had “voluntarily paused” its trial of a drug developed alongside Oxford University after a UK volunteer developed an unexplained illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An independent committee was drafted in to review safety but the company said it was a “routine action” designed to maintain the integrity of the trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We will be guided by this committee as to when the trials could restart, so that we can continue our work at the earliest opportunity,” Soriot said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate is one of nine around the world currently in late-stage Phase 3 human trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the US, the company began enrolling 30,000 volunteers across dozens of sites on August 31, and smaller groups are being tested in Brazil and elsewhere in South America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vaccine, called AZD1222, uses a weakened version of a common cold-causing adenovirus engineered to code for the spike protein that the novel coronavirus uses to invade cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After vaccination, this protein is produced inside the human body, which primes the immune system to attack the coronavirus if the person is later infected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The director of UK scientific research charity the Wellcome Trust, Jeremy Farrar, said there were often pauses in vaccine trials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that it demonstrated the importance of conducting vaccine trials properly, with independent oversight and the involvement of the regulator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In the end the public must have absolute trust that these vaccines are safe and of course effective, and in the end will hopefully bring the pandemic to a close,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, on Wednesday said similar events should be expected but progress on vaccines and therapeutics was positive overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Some will read out this year in terms of efficacy and safety,” he told a Downing Street news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And I think there’s a reasonable chance that… we can think about the possibility of vaccination next year sometime at larger levels.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the pause was “not necessarily” a set-back, and said a similar pause occurred recently but was “resolved without a problem”. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON, Sept 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Drugs giant AstraZeneca on Thursday said a Covid-19 vaccine could still be available by as early as the end of this year, despite a randomised clinical trial in the UK being paused. \u201cWe could still have a vaccine by the end of this year, early next year,\u201d the company\u2019s chief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":91598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91597"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}