A massive deployment of coronavirus vaccines in the U.K. could be done in as little as three months, the Times reported.
The British daily said scientists working on the vaccine developed by the company AstraZeneca in collaboration with the University of Oxford hope European regulators will approve it “before the start of next year.” It quoted “health officials” saying that “every adult could receive a dose within six months.”
Earlier this week, the European Medical Agency announced it had started the first “rolling review” of the AstraZeneca vaccine. “The start of the rolling review means that the committee has started evaluating the first batch of data on the vaccine, which come from laboratory studies (non-clinical data),” the EMA said in a statement.
If approved, the vaccine being developed by Oxford University would be “the most advanced of those backed by Britain,” the Times said.
The coronavirus has killed more than 42,000 people in the U.K., and more than a million people world-wide, according to the John Hopkins University.