UK Secures Deals For 90Mln Doses Of Further 2 Candidate Vaccines Against COVID-19 - Gov't

UK Secures Deals for 90Mln Doses of Further 2 Candidate Vaccines Against COVID-19 - Gov't

The UK government has secured deals with another two pharmaceutical firms for a total of 90 million doses of candidate vaccines against COVID-19, according to a press release on Friday, taking the country's potential vaccine stockpile to 340 million doses

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th August, 2020) The UK government has secured deals with another two pharmaceutical firms for a total of 90 million doses of candidate vaccines against COVID-19, according to a press release on Friday, taking the country's potential vaccine stockpile to 340 million doses.

An agreement has been signed with the US firm Novavax for 60 million doses of their candidate vaccine, and the government has also agreed a deal with Belgium's Janssen Pharmaceutica for 30 million doses of a prospective vaccine, according to the press release.

"Today's agreements will not only benefit people in the UK but will ensure fair and equitable access of a vaccine around the world, potentially protecting hundreds of millions of lives," business Secretary Alok Sharma said in the press release.

The UK has now secured deals to receive six candidate vaccines against COVID-19. Agreements are already in place for London to receive 100 million doses of a vaccine being produced by the University of Oxford in conjunction with AstraZeneca, 60 million doses each of vaccines being developed by Valneva and GSK/Sanofi, and 30 million doses of BioNTech/Pfizer's candidate vaccine.

Since the start of the outbreak, 313,798 lab-confirmed positive tests for COVID-19 have been registered by the Department of Health and Social Care.

On Wednesday, the department revised how it reports deaths related to the coronavirus disease. From now on, only those who have died within 28 days of registering a positive test will be counted by the government.

The UK's official coronavirus disease death toll subsequently fell by more than 5,000 and stands at 41,347 as of Thursday.