The UK approved the first inactivated COVID-19 vaccine for people aged 18 to 50 years

Among the multiple technical routes of the COVID-19 vaccine, the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) has approved an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine for the first time.

On April 14, the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) approved the COVID-19 vaccine developed by French biotech company Valneva. As a result, the Valneva vaccine became the sixth COVID-19 vaccine to be approved by the MHRA in the UK and the first inactivated COVID-19 vaccine approved in the UK.

On December 2, 2020, the United Kingdom first approved the use of the mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, thus becoming the first country in the world to approve the use of Pfizer's new crown vaccine. Subsequently, the adenovirus vector vaccine developed by Oxford University in cooperation with AstraZeneca Pharmaceutical Company of the United Kingdom and the mRNA new crown vaccine developed by the United States Modena Company were successively approved. As of now, the UK MHRA has approved a total of 6 COVID-19 vaccines.

According to the British government network, MHRA CEO June Raine said that before approving the new crown vaccine produced by Valneva, the safety, quality and efficacy of the vaccine had been strictly reviewed, and expert recommendations from the Human Medicines Commission had been listened to.

Munir Pirmohamed, chairman of the Human Medicines Commission, said the COVID-19 vaccine was approved for use in people aged 18 to 50 years, with the first and second doses given at least 28 days apart. At the same time, the Valneva vaccine requires two doses of the vaccine to have a protective effect.

In addition, the Storage Temperature of valneva Vaccine is 2 °C to 8 °C, which is similar to the storage temperature of household refrigerators, so it is suitable for countries where it is not possible to store vaccines at extremely low temperatures.

The technical route of the new crown vaccine is different, inactivation is one of them, and it is also widely used in the production of influenza and polio vaccines.

Since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020, in March 2020, China has laid out a total of 5 technical routes of vaccine research and development, namely inactivated vaccines, adenovirus vector vaccines, recombinant protein vaccines, attenuated influenza virus vector vaccines and nucleic acid vaccines, and has achieved full coverage of clinical trials of 5 technical routes. Among them, inactivated vaccines are advancing faster.

On May 7, 2021, the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 inactivated vaccine developed by Sinopharm's China Biological Institute of Beijing Biological Products has officially passed the WHO emergency use certification, becoming the sixth in the world and the first NEW CORONAVIRUS vaccine in China to obtain the WHO emergency use certification. Subsequently, on June 1, the covid-19 inactivated vaccine "Kerraf" developed by Beijing Kexing Zhongwei Biotechnology Co., Ltd. in China was officially certified by WHO for emergency use.

According to data released by the National Health Commission, as of April 13, 2022, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps have reported a cumulative total of 3,305,884,000 doses of covid-19 vaccine. Of these, the vast majority are vaccinated with inactivated vaccines.

On April 8, a study published by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC weekly) analyzed the association between domestic COVID-19 vaccination and the clinical severity of all 10,829 cases (8,675 Delta, 2,154 Omikron) reported to the National Statutory Disease Reporting System (NNDRS) from May 21, 2021 to February 28, 2022. The authors include Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and others.

The data show that out of 10,829 infected people, of all cases that completed the full course of vaccination, 95.1% (7849) were vaccinated against inactivated vaccines, 2.2% (183) were vaccinated against adenovirus vectors, and 2.7% (223) were vaccinated against recombinant subunits.

At present, the global epidemic situation is still severe and complex, and vaccination is still one of the important means of epidemic prevention and control. However, the frequent mutation of the new crown virus poses a challenge to the protective efficacy of vaccines. Facts have also proved that the new crown vaccines that have been listed, whether it is mRNA vaccines, inactivated vaccines, recombinant protein vaccines, adenovirus vector vaccines, etc., are still insufficient in curbing breakthrough infections.

However, the role of these vaccines in preventing severe illness and death is outstanding.

On March 22, a study entitled "Prospective Planning for the Fifth Wave of the Epidemic in Hong Kong" released by the Li Ka Shing School of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong showed that for the elderly over 60 years old, the three doses of The Cotesin and Fubitai (BNT162b2) vaccines have an effective rate of more than 90% in preventing severe illness and preventing deaths.

Specifically, after the completion of three doses of booster vaccination for people over 60 years old, the effectiveness rate of the Kexing vaccine was 97.9%, the effectiveness rate of fubitech jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech was 98%, and the effectiveness rate of kexing and fubitai against death reached 98.3% and 98.1%, respectively.

For people aged ≥ 60 years old, under the condition of completing two doses of full vaccination, the effective rates of Kexing and Fubitai in preventing severe disease were 72.2% and 89.6%, respectively; the effective rates of preventing deaths were 77.4% and 92.3%, respectively.

As a result, the effect of China's inactivated vaccine is also strongly supported by real-world data.

At the state council's joint prevention and control mechanism press conference on April 12, Wang Huaqing, chief expert of the immunization program of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that 74% of the deaths counted in Hong Kong had not been vaccinated, and 14% had only been injected once. At present, although vaccination cannot completely block the spread of the virus, the effect on severe illness and death is still very significant. "We still recommend that eligible elderly people get vaccinated as soon as possible, get vaccinated as soon as possible, and strengthen vaccination as soon as possible when conditions need to be strengthened." Because vaccination takes a certain amount of time to produce an effect, and a good effect also requires a full process of vaccination. In addition, when the immune protection has decreased to a certain extent, it is also necessary to give a reinforcing injection. ”