COVID-19 jab against variant to be prepared by autumn, profits doubled: Oxford-AstraZeneca

Drug giant AstraZeneca (in collaboration with Oxford) has said that the vaccine jab to cope with the Kent and South Africa coronavirus variants will be developed by autumn as it revealed its annual profits have more than doubled. AstraZeneca, who is offering the coronavirus vaccines at non-profitable grounds, hits sales of 27 billion US dollars  – a rise of 10% and the company reported pre-tax profits of 3.92 billion US dollars for 2020.

AstraZeneca vaccine against new Covid-19 strain

AstraZeneca will start the vaccination program before winter for its new jab as it is aiming to start its official clinical trials. Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot stated that AstraZeneca's existing vaccine has shown satisfactory results against the new rapidly contagious COVID-19 variant but will need to be adapted to prevent milder symptoms. World Health Organisation (WHO) may soon recommend the use of the Oxford-Astrazeneca jab in all adults. 

Pascal added, "One hundred million doses in February means 100 million vaccinations, which means hundreds of thousands of severe infections avoided and it also means thousands of deaths that are avoided. We’re going to save thousands of lives and that’s why we come to work every day as individuals.” 

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New Covid-19 jab ready by autumn

Earlier, Sarah Gilbert, lead researcher for the Oxford team, told media that the drug giant has a new version prepared to use in the autumn. “It looks very likely that we can have a new version ready to use in the autumn," she asserted. Oxford University made its official statement over the new vaccine against South Africa Variant after that reports suggested that the AstraZeneca vaccine has a mild impact on the disease caused by this new contagious virus strain. 

Oxford University in a statement informed, “Protection against moderate-severe disease, hospitalization or death could not be assessed in this study as the target population was at such low risk. Concerning to some extent that we're seeing that it's not effective against mild or moderate disease" [Sic.]

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