The UK government has signed a deal for a further 90 million coronavirus vaccine with the Belgian Pharmaceutical company Janssen and the US biotech company Novavax. This brings the tally of UK orders for six experimental vaccines to 340 million doses including 100 million doses of Adenovirus vaccines by Oxford University/ AstraZeneca, 30 million does Janssen, 30 million of mRNA doses by BioNtech/Pfizer, Inactivated whole virus vaccines 60 million doses Valneva, Protein adjuvant vaccines 60 million doses by GSK/Sanofi, 60 million doses of Novavax vaccine which should be enough for everyone in the UK to get five doses.
With most vaccine trials ending in failure, the government is effectively hedging its bets, hoping that at least one of the vaccines it has purchased proves safe and effective.
Kat Bingham, chair of the UK government Vaccine Taskforce said “ We don’t know if any of these vaccine formats that we’ve acquired will actually work. There are no licensed vaccines for any human coronavirus”.
By the end of the year, there could be at least half a dozen different coronavirus vaccines in clinical trials in the UK and members of the public are being encouraged to register their interest online because without medical volunteers we will not know if any of these vaccines actually work.