UK APPROVES OXFORD VACCINE

UK APPROVES OXFORD VACCINE

Subject: Science & tech

Context: The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in the UK, with the first doses due to be given on Monday. There will be 530,000 doses available from next week, and vaccination centres will now start inviting patients to come and get the jab.

Concept :

• Priority groups for immunisation have already been identified, starting with care home residents, the over-80s, and health and care workers.
• It comes as millions more in England are placed in tier four restrictions.
• The UK has ordered 100 million doses of the new vaccine – enough to vaccinate 50 million people.

About the vaccine

• ChAdOx1 COVID-9 was jointly developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
• The vaccine belongs to a category called non-replicating viral vector vaccines.
• This vaccine is made from a genetically engineered virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees.
• The adenovirus, genetically modified so that it cannot replicate in humans, will enter the cell and release the code to make only the spike protein.
• The body’s immune system is expected to recognise the spike protein as a potentially harmful foreign substance, and starts building antibodies against it.
• Once immunity is built, the antibodies will attack the real virus if it tries to infect the body.

Spike Protein

• When someone is infected with the Covid-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2), the reason it spreads in the body easily is because of the spikes on its surface. These spikes, known as the ‘spike protein’, allow the virus to penetrate cells and, thereafter, multiply.