All you need to know about Oxford vaccine - Advantages and Side Effects

All you need to know about Oxford vaccine – Advantages and Side Effects. After the United Kingdom granted approval for the use of the vaccine developed by the University of “Oxford” and the British “AstraZeneca” drug company, and it provides a protection rate of 70% to 90%, several questions revolve around the vaccine and its nature.

All you need to know about Oxford vaccine – Advantages and Side Effects

One of its most prominent features is that it costs a little about 2.50 euros (3 dollars) per dose, according to Agence France-Presse. Also, it is easy to store, as it requires temperatures ranging between two and eight degrees Celsius, which is the temperature of normal refrigerators, unlike the vaccines “Moderna” and “Pfizer – Biontic”, which can only be stored in the long term at very low temperatures reaching 20 degrees below zero. For the first vaccine, and 70 degrees below zero for the second vaccine.

Viral vector – All you need to know about Oxford vaccine

The British “AstraZeneca” group developed the vaccine in cooperation with the University of Oxford. It is the second vaccine licensed by the British Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency after the “Pfizer – Biontech” vaccine, which has been distributed in Britain since the eighth of December. And more than a million people have been injected with it so far.

And the laboratories announced that about 3 billion doses will be produced of their vaccine worldwide in 2021.

As for its way of work, the vaccine depends on a “viral vector”. Meaning that it is based on another virus that is an adenovirus spread among monkeys, it has been modified and adapted to combat the emerging coronavirus.

Side effects

It is the first vaccine that the medical reference journal “The Lancet” approved its results for efficacy on December 8th, declaring in the data it published that the Oxford vaccine is safe. Side effects of the vaccine are very rare at the current stage.

Of the 23,754 volunteers who participated in the experiments. One person who received the vaccine recorded a “serious effect that may be related” to the injection, according to data released in the journal.

That person developed a rare inflammation of the spinal cord, which led to the trial being temporarily stopped in early September.

Its effectiveness increases

In addition, the British laboratory announced in November. Upon revealing the interim results of clinical trials, that its vaccine was effective at an average rate of 70%, compared to more than 90% for the vaccines “Pfizer – Biontec” and “Moderna”.

However, this average involved a large discrepancy between the two methods used. As the effectiveness rate increased to 90% in volunteers who received half a dose for the first time. And after a month, it decreased to 62% in a second group who received two full doses.

These results sparked criticism because the half-dose vaccination was done by mistake. While the second method was applied only to a limited group, prompting laboratories to announce on November 26 that additional studies will be conducted to verify the results. (Source: Al- Arabiya)