The Oxford vaccine may be more valuable compared to Moderna and...

The reported average efficacy was 70%, well below the 94.5% to 95% reported by the other two leading candidates, Moderna and Pfizer.

However, this vaccine could prove to be more valuable to the world compared to the other two vaccines in the coming months.

If questions about its results are answered and approved, the product could be a pioneer in providing vaccine coverage in the poorest countries, where it is most needed.

The UK government took the first step in the approval process on Friday, announcing that it had formally referred the candidate to the UK Medicines Regulatory Authority for evaluation.

AstraZeneca promised to supply hundreds of millions of doses to low- and middle-income countries, and to deliver the vaccine on a non-profit basis to those countries.

And the vaccine that was developed at the University of “Oxford” in England is characterized by being much cheaper than other vaccines.

And most importantly, it will be much easier to transport and distribute in developing countries compared to its competitors, because it does not need to be stored at lower temperatures.

The technology behind the vaccine

The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine can be kept at a temperature of 2-8 ° C for at least 6 months.

As for the “Moderna” vaccine, it must be stored at minus 20 degrees Celsius, or in refrigerator temperatures for up to 30 days, and the Pfizer-Bio-Tech vaccine must be stored at a temperature of minus 75 degrees Celsius, and it must be used within 5 Days once you put it in the fridge.

“Pfizer and Moderna require cold storage, and this is not available in many places,” said Azra Ghani, head of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London.

Vaccines depend on different technologies, and the “AstraZeneca” vaccine uses adenoviruses to transfer the genetic parts of the Corona virus to the body, such as the “Johnson & Johnson” vaccine, and the Russian “Sputnik-V”.

As for “Moderna” and “Pfizer”, they use pieces of a genetic material called “mRNA” to stimulate the body to make artificial parts of the Corona virus, and to stimulate the immune response.

“This is a relatively new technology, and not much is known about the stability of mRNA over time,” Chair of the Education and Standards Committee at the College of Pharmacology UK, Penny Ward, told CNN.

Pledge to help

AstraZeneca has committed to providing 300 million doses of its vaccine to COVAX, a partnership between the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI), the World Health Organization, and the Alliance for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to ensure equitable distribution to 92 developing countries.

Global effects

The “COVAX” initiative will be crucial in getting the vaccine to low and middle income countries, according to the Duke University model.

The initiative aims to provide two billion doses by the end of 2021 to protect vulnerable groups around the world, and to provide sufficient doses to eventually cover 20% of the population of those countries.

But Ghani cautioned that the percentage of 20% is still far from the ideal rate required to achieve herd immunity, i.e. 70%.

Ghani stressed that it is necessary for everyone to be vaccinated for the world’s population, in order to be able to travel and move across borders.

It could take until 2023 for the vaccine to be introduced to the world, according to current models, not to mention the potential need for booster doses.