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Cautious welcome after Pfizer vaccine approved for use in UK

Image: Ascannio, via Shutterstock.com

Scientists warn of logistical challenges in vaccine deployment and public confidence issues

Scientists have welcomed news of the UK becoming the first country to authorise use of a Covid-19 vaccine, but have warned about challenges around logistics and public confidence.

On 2 December the government said it had accepted the recommendation from the independent Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to approve Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine for use.

The Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations is now expected to publish its final advice on priority groups to receive the vaccine, such as care home residents, healthcare staff and the elderly.

“The vaccine will be made available across the UK from next week,” said a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care.

The UK government has secured 40 million doses of the vaccine, with 800,000 doses expected to be available next week.

The announcement comes after Pfizer and BioNTech published positive efficacy results from Phase 3 studies showing the vaccine to be more than 95 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19 in participants.

‘Completely unprecedented’

“This is a historic day and an important moment at the end of an incredibly difficult year,” said Charlie Weller, head of vaccines at the Wellcome Trust. “For a vaccine to be developed, receive emergency approval and be ready to roll out in less than a year for a new virus is completely unprecedented.

“The speed of development for this and other vaccine candidates is testament to an extraordinary, collaborative, global research effort.”

But, he added, “as normal for any vaccine, there will be a need for close and continued monitoring for safety and efficacy as it is delivered”.

“We will also need to continue tracking and improving our understanding on how long the protection lasts. We must recognise that not everyone will have a vaccine immediately or even early next year. It is critical that groups most at risk, such as the elderly and frontline healthcare workers, are prioritised to receive the first doses.”

‘Not the end of the story’

Arne Akbar, president of the British Society for Immunology, described the achievement as “remarkable” but warned that “this announcement is not the end of the story and there is still much work to do”.

The fact that the vaccine must be distributed at minus 80 degrees Celsius means the rollout is going to be a “logistical challenge and [will] rely on our dedicated healthcare professionals around the country”, he pointed out.

Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, said the logistical challenges were “not insurmountable but certainly challenging”.

“Other vaccines, such as the Oxford AstraZeneca candidate, require storage at much lesser temperatures and will be simpler to transport,” he said.

“Given we will certainly need more than one licensed vaccine to maximise global coverage, everyone will still be eagerly waiting for further developments from Oxford and Moderna,” he said, referring also to the US company that has announced successful phase 3 trial results.

Akbar added that building public confidence in the vaccine was also going to be “crucial in ensuring the high uptake needed to stop the spread of Sars-CoV-2 within our communities”.

“It is essential that we have high profile and multifaceted engagement campaigns that listen and respond to the public’s questions around the vaccine,” he said.

‘Life won’t be the same as before’

Liam Smeeth, a professor of clinical epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said a further circuit-breaker lockdown in January or February would likely be needed but that “it is realistic to hope that by March or April the vast majority of older people, care home residents, and those with severe conditions will have been immunized”.

“We can then work towards wider immunization—with ideally much of the population covered in time for next winter. Life won’t ever be the same as it was before Covid-19, but it will feel a whole lot better than now.”

He described equitable global distribution of the vaccine as a “major challenge”.

“Many low-income countries with little resilience in their health systems and wider infrastructures face unimaginable challenges from Covid-19, and distribution of vaccines according to need will require affirmative action from richer countries, working with the World Health Organisation and other key players,” he said.