London: United Kingdom, which is battling the highly contagious variant of the virus, on Wednesday became the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.
“The government has today accepted the recommendation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to authorise Oxford University/AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine for use,” the Health Ministry said.
Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca CEO, said the approval in the UK is a significant step forward in the fight against this pandemic. “In 2020, teams across AstraZeneca have risen to the challenges COVID-19 has posed to global health,” he said.
The approval by the UK government follows rigorous clinical trials and a thorough analysis of the data by the MHRA, which says the vaccine has met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness, as per a report in Business Today.
The country has already approved Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine candidate in December, and has started vaccination drive in the country. Over 600,000 people in the UK have already been vaccinated since Pfizer vaccine got the mandatory approval. The government has ordered 100 million doses from AstraZeneca, which is more than enough to vaccine its 50 million people.
The pandemic has already killed 1.7 million people around the world, sown chaos through the global economy and upended normal life for billions since it began in Wuhan, China, a year ago.
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