James Warren
SPAIN’S Minister of Health, Salvador Illa has said that he expects a vaccine to be available ‘by the end of the year’.
In an interview with Spanish television show ‘Al Rojo Vivo’, Illa yesterday said that an agreement had been reached with British – Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca.
The vaccine in question, AZD7442, is a joint development from AstraZeneca and leading figure in pharmaceutical research Oxford University
Spain secured an order for 31 million doses of a potential vaccine on August 14 as confirmed by the Ministry of Health.
The delivery of the order is pending clinical trials on 30,000 volunteers to assess its ability to fight the virus.
Once the trials are complete and the European Medicine Agency approves it for sale, the doses will be delivered to Spain as part of the EU’s Centralised Purchase Program.
The AstraZeneca offering will bolster a further 80 million doses authorised by American laboratory Moderna to be manufactured in Madrid.
Other companies such as Sonfi, GSK and Janssen are also in talks with the European Commission to supply Spain with vaccines, honouring their word of supplying a minimum of 1.1 billion doses in Spain by 2021.
