Bingham also cautioned that the global manufacturing capacity for vaccines was vastly inadequate for the billions of doses that were needed, and that Britain’s manufacturing capability to date had been “equally scarce”.
With over 900,000 infections and more than 45,000 deaths, Britain’s COVID-19 epidemic has been one of the world’s deadliest, and on Tuesday daily fatalities hit their highest level since May.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is using a strategy of local lockdowns to try and contain its second wave, which reports in the Telegraph newspaper said the government was expecting to be more deadly than the first.
Britain has agreed supply deals for six vaccine candidates, including treatments being trialled by AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Pfizer.
Bingham also cautioned that the global manufacturing capacity for vaccines was vastly inadequate for the billions of doses that were needed, and that Britain’s manufacturing capability to date had been “equally scarce”.
With over 900,000 infections and more than 45,000 deaths, Britain’s COVID-19 epidemic has been one of the world’s deadliest, and on Tuesday daily fatalities hit their highest level since May.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is using a strategy of local lockdowns to try and contain its second wave, which reports in the Telegraph newspaper said the government was expecting to be more deadly than the first.
Britain has agreed supply deals for six vaccine candidates, including treatments being trialled by AstraZeneca, Sanofi and Pfizer.
Our strategy has been to build a diverse portfolio across different formats to give the UK the greatest chance of providing a safe and effective vaccine, recognising that many, and possibly all, of these vaccines could fail. We have focused on vaccines that are expected to elicit immune responses in the population older than 65 years: over three-quarters of deaths caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection are in this older population,1, 2 so it is essential that any vaccine is able to protect this group. Scalability of vaccine manufacture was also a key criterion, with the goal being to manufacture in the UK, if possible, to secure supply and create long-term resilience. We considered only vaccines that have the potential for approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and European Medicines Agency and for vaccine delivery as early as the end of 2020 or, at the latest, in the second half of 2021
Our strategy has been to build a diverse portfolio across different formats to give the UK the greatest chance of providing a safe and effective vaccine, recognising that many, and possibly all, of these vaccines could fail. We have focused on vaccines that are expected to elicit immune responses in the population older than 65 years: over three-quarters of deaths caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection are in this older population,1, 2 so it is essential that any vaccine is able to protect this group. Scalability of vaccine manufacture was also a key criterion, with the goal being to manufacture in the UK, if possible, to secure supply and create long-term resilience. We considered only vaccines that have the potential for approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and European Medicines Agency and for vaccine delivery as early as the end of 2020 or, at the latest, in the second half of 2021