The arrival of the 487,200 vaccines was welcomed by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, vaccine Czar Secretary Carlito Galvez, Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque III, WHO Philippine representative  Dr Rabindra Abeyasinghe, Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Philippines Ambassador Daniel Pruce, and AstraZeneca Country President Lotis Ramin. 

AstraZeneca is proud to be a partner to COVAX in enabling communities around the world to access the vaccine as soon as possible. This partnership underscores AstraZeneca’s commitment to provide safe and effective vaccines at no profit during the pandemic and ensures COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to low and middle-income countries. Today marks an important step in expanding global, equitable access to the vaccine and changing the course of the pandemic. 

Distribution of the vaccine follows the recent Emergency Use Listing by the World Health Organization for active immunization in individuals 18 years of age and older, providing a vital and accelerated pathway to access. The doses have been allocated equitably according to the COVAX Allocation Framework which determines volume per participating country based on several factors.

AstraZeneca Country President Lotis Ramin said, “AstraZeneca is proud to be the first vaccine from COVAX to arrive in the Philippines. We have been working closely with all key stakeholders to fulfill our commitment to provide broad and equitable access to an effective, well-tolerated, and simple-to-administer vaccine at no profit during the pandemic. We will continue to work with the Philippine national and local governments, private donors, and COVAX to pave the way for return to normalcy and economic recovery for all Filipinos.” 

AstraZeneca was the first global pharmaceutical company to join COVAX in June 2020 in line with the company’s shared commitment to global, equitable access to vaccines. Together with its license partner the Serum Institute of India, it is planned that hundreds of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be made available to 142 countries through COVAX, pending any supply and operational challenges.

The COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine has been shown to be well-tolerated and effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19. A single dose of the vaccine has an efficacy of 76% against symptomatic COVD-19 in the first 90 days after vaccination, with no significant waning of protection during this period. Vaccine efficacy after the second dose was higher in those with a longer interval, reaching 81.3% in those with a dosing interval of 12 weeks or more. 

Clinical trial results have confirmed COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca’s 100% protection against severe disease, hospitalization and death, more than 22 days after the first dose is administered. Research also suggests that the vaccine reduces asymptomatic transmission of the virus considerably, by up to two-thirds, based on weekly swabs obtained from volunteers in the UK trial. 

COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca, formerly AZD1222

COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca was co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-out company, Vaccitech. It uses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that causes infections in chimpanzees and contains the genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein. After vaccination, the surface spike protein is produced, priming the immune system to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus if it later infects the body.

The WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL) was based on pooled analysis for efficacy from 11,636  participants aged 18 years and older, accruing 131 symptomatic COVID-19 infections from the UK and Brazil Phase III trials conducted by Oxford University.

Overall safety was based on an interim analysis of pooled data from four clinical trials conducted in the UK, Brazil and South Africa which included 23,745 participants aged 18 years or older. COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca was well tolerated and there were no serious safety events confirmed related to the vaccine. The participants were from diverse ethnic and geographic groups who were healthy or had stable underlying medical conditions.

In addition to the program led by Oxford University, AstraZeneca is conducting a large trial in the US and globally. In total, Oxford University and AstraZeneca expect to enrol up to 60,000 participants globally.

AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine has been granted conditional marketing authorization or emergency use in more than 50 countries, with the WHO EUL now accelerating the pathway to access in up to 142 countries through the COVAX Facility.

AstraZeneca