UK embarks on largest
vaccination programme in history

As PharmaTimes was going to press, more than 4 million people in the UK had received their first dose of a COVID vaccine, under the largest vaccination programme in British history.

Between December 8, 2020, and January 17, 2021, a total of 4.06 million were vaccinated by the NHS, including over half of people aged 80 years and older as well as over half of elderly care home residents. Vaccinations are now being offered to the over 70s.

As per the UK’s COVID-19 Vaccines Delivery Plan, ‘tens of millions of people’ are to be offered the vaccine by spring 2021, and all adults across the country by the autumn.
To achieve this, the government said it aims for everyone in England to be within ten miles of a vaccination site by the end of January, with vaccines also set to be offered to people living in ‘highly rural areas’ via mobile teams.

In line with this, it was announced that ASDA would become the first supermarket to provide in-store COVID-19 vaccinations, starting on January 25 in Birmingham. Qualified pharmacists are to administer the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to the priority groups already identified by the NHS, with capacity to provide 250 jabs per day. The supermarket chain said it would continue to work with Public Health England and NHS England to assess additional sites that could support the vaccination programme.

“This is the biggest medical deployment in British history and it’s one of the biggest civilian operations that this country’s ever undertaken,” said Health Secretary Matt Hancock, commenting on the vaccination programme. “We’re on track to deliver our plan to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups by the middle of February, the groups that account for 88% of COVID-19 deaths.”

The news came hot on the heels of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approval of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, making it the third cleared for use in the UK following those from Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca/Oxford University.

The UK has now secured a 17 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine – which in trials showed efficacy of 94.5% – having initially signed a deal for seven million doses in November 2020.

Meanwhile, several companies are continuing to work on potential therapies for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. Southampton, UK-headquartered company Synairgen has now treated the first patient in the UK as part of a global Phase III trial evaluating its inhaled COVID-19 treatment SNG001.

SNG001 is an inhaled formulation of interferon beta-1a, a naturally occurring protein believed to kickstart the body’s antiviral responses. Preliminary data for SNG001 released last year showed that the risk of developing severe disease (requiring ventilation or resulting in death) during the treatment period was significantly cut by 79% for patients in the treatment group.

Elsewhere, results from the REMAP CAP study found that the anti-inflammatories tocilizumab and sarilumab reduced the risk of death in severe COVID-19 cases by 8.5% and also cut recovery time and time spent in intensive care.

The findings come as the UK death toll from coronavirus continues to reach new heights; on January 19, it was reported that 1,610 people died in the UK within 28 days of a positive COVID test, bringing the total number of deaths recorded in this way to over 90,000.