According to a statement released by the British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, the firm has promised to deliver 400 million doses of the Oxford University-created coronavirus vaccine currently undergoing trials.
The firm announced it had signed an agreement with the European Commission to provide up to 400 million doses of the vaccine, which has been dubbed “AZD1222.” The new vaccine deal was drawn up under the guidelines for the existing agreement, called the “European Alliance for Exclusive Vaccines.”
The first to benefit from the vaccine will be all the member states of the EU, but the firm will also be allowed to distribute doses to all other countries in Europe as well.
The AstraZeneca statement stresses that the firm will make no profit whatsoever on the vaccine, and the distribution will take place in proportion to the population of a nation.
As they had noted in an earlier press release, and Vassilis Kikilias, the Greek Minister of Heath, had stated, the vaccine will not be ready before the end of this year.
The CEO of AstraZeneca, Pascal Sorio stated “This first agreement with the European Commission will ensure that millions of Europeans will have access to the AZD1222 vaccine as soon as it is approved. With production in our European supply chain expected to start soon, we hope to make the vaccine widely available and quickly, with the first installments scheduled for delivery by the end of 2020.
“I would like to thank the European Commission and especially the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakidou for their prompt response to ensure that Europeans can soon be vaccinated against the deadly virus, enabling the global community and economy to be rebuilt,” he added.
In an earlier statement in the early days of the development of the vaccine, AstraZeneca said that the first systematic tests, published in The Lancet, “showed that AZD1222 was tolerable and produced strong immune responses against the SARS-CoV-2 virus in all participants evaluated.”
It added that “The clinical development of AZD1222 is progressing worldwide with ongoing Phase II / III phase trials in the United Kingdom and Brazil, a Phase I / II trial in South Africa and planned studies in the United States, Japan and Russia.
The statement concluded by saying that the final trial results should be available toward the end of 2020, depending on the rates of infections in the nations where it was being tested.
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