Britain signs vaccine deals for 90mln doses
Britain has signed deals to secure 90 million doses of two possible COVID-19 vaccines.
The business ministry announced the agreements on Monday (July 20) with the Pfizer and BioNTech alliance and French group Valneva.
It's secured 30 million doses of the experimental BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine.
Plus a deal in principle for 60 million doses of the Valneva vaccine, with an option of 40 million more if it's proven to be safe and effective.
Financial terms of the deals were not confirmed.
Mikael Dolsten is Pfizer's Chief Scientific Officer:
"It evokes our immune system, and they get trained to very quickly respond with, what we call, the antibodies or immune cells. And now the body is ready. It has memory. And once the real virus knocks on the door to infect us, we respond fast and intercept it from becoming an expanding viral population that threatens our lives."
The deals follow an agreement with AstraZeneca for the firm to produce 100 million doses of its potential vaccine with the University of Oxford.
There is currently no working vaccine against the virus.
Britain also said on Monday it had secured treatments from AstraZeneca containing COVID-19-neutralising antibodies to protect people who can't be vaccinated.
