How It Works
How Effective Is It?
When Will It Be Available?
Who Can Get the AstraZeneca Vaccine?
Side Effects and Adverse Events
While some vaccine makers are using new approaches to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), others are turning to more established methods to end the pandemic.
AstraZeneca and Oxford University have been working on an adenovirus-based vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222). The vaccine is a viral vector vaccine that uses a modified adenovirus—the virus that causes the common cold—that contains genetic material from the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The vaccine was developed quickly since this vaccine technology has been around for decades.
Oxford had been studying adenovirus-based vaccines for a number of other diseases like the Zika virus when COVID-19 emerged. Researchers adapted a weakened chimpanzee adenovirus to develop the vaccine, and a Phase 1 trial began in April 2020, with more than 1,000 vaccinations given in the United Kingdom.1
Initial Phase 3 trial results were published in early December and investigated how well the vaccine worked in more than 11,000 of the nearly 24,000 people over the age of 18 enrolled across four trial groups in the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa.2
There has been some controversy surrounding this vaccine, with dosing discrepancies in some study groups, and a move by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to pause the U.S. trial because of unexplained illness. The FDA restarted the trial after reviewing the safety data.3
There are not any hearings scheduled yet on an emergency use authorization by the FDA, and the U.S. clinical trial is scheduled to last until September 2021.
http://www.verywellhealth.com/astrazeneca-oxford-covid-19-vaccine-5093148
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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