direct to your inbox This is everything you need to know about the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, which was approved for use in the UK in December 2020.
It was the second Covid-19 vaccine to be approved by the medicines regulator.The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine – called ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 – uses a harmless, weakened version of a common virus which causes a cold in chimpanzees.Researchers have already used this technology to produce vaccines against a number of pathogens including flu, Zika and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers).The virus is genetically modified so that it is impossible for it to grow in humans.Scientists have transferred the genetic instructions for coronavirus’s specific “spike protein” – which it needs to invade.