The distribution of the vaccine against COVID-19 could be done “in advanced phase” at the end of March 2021, according to estimates by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, in charge of supplying the European Union (EU) with 300 million doses.
This was indicated this Monday, November 2nd, by the director of the AstraZeneca Oncology Research and Development area, Josep Baselga, who estimates that by the beginning of next year the pharmaceutical company will have about three billion vaccines that he trusts will be verified as effective.
The “complicated” thing will be to design how to distribute them given the demand that will exist, so Balsega estimates that until the end of the first quarter of 2021 the vaccines (if they work), would not be in the “advanced distribution phase”.
AstraZeneca expects that before the end of the year “one, two or three” of the four vaccines it is experimenting with will start to give “good results”.
In the case of this company’s vaccines, the forecast is that two doses will be applied: the second 28 days after the first.
“Right now there are 175 different vaccines in the world that are being worked on, 35 of them in clinical trials with patients, and 10 in their final verification phase”, explained Balsega in radio statements.
“The vaccine will help, but it is not the only solution,” he said and recalled that AstraZeneca is also developing a treatment for “monoclonal antibodies”, with which antibodies from people who have passed the virus to potential patients would be applied.
There are 16 of these treatments in development and one in particular that is considered “exceptionally good.”
However, he was confident that after a winter that will be “horrible” next summer will be “relatively normal”, and argued that those who do not want to be vaccinated should not be forced to do so, because in his opinion “this is a principle of individual freedom that is undeniable ”.
