UK approves Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine

The UK approved on Wednesday the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, becoming the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca.

The approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) means that the coronavirus vaccine is both safe and effective. The UK has ordered 100 million doses, enough to vaccinate 50 million people, BBC reported.

"From today the National Health Service (NHS) across the UK will prioritise giving the first dose of the vaccine to those in the most high-risk groups," the government said in a statement.

AstraZeneca’s Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot said that today is an important day for millions of people in the UK who will get access to this new vaccine. "It has been shown to be effective, well-tolerated, simple to administer and is supplied by AstraZeneca at no profit," CNBC quoted him.

Oxford-AstraZeneca is the second vaccine to be approved in the UK after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The government has already vaccinated hundreds of thousands of patients with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Unlike Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, Oxford-AstraZeneca can be shipped and stored at normal refrigeration temperatures for six months. At $3 to $4 a dose, it is a fraction of the cost of some other vaccines.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson termed the approval as 'truly fantastic news - and a triumph for British science'. "We will now move to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible," he tweeted.