MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd September, 2020) Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Wednesday that a potential COVID-19 vaccine, produced by the UK's AstraZeneca, could hit the market by the end of the year.
"If the vaccine is confirmed as safe and able to meet its objective it will be already available by the end of 2020," Speranza told parliament.
AstraZeneca signed a 336 million euro ($397 million) deal to deliver to the European Union at least 300 million doses of a potential vaccine created by the company together with the University of Oxford and with support from Italian specialists.
The UK-Swedish pharmaceutical giant has struck major deals with the EU, US, Japan and Brazil, among others, to pledge deliveries of readied vaccines and vaccine formulas for mass production. AstraZeneca has at least three vaccine candidates currently being tested, with one at the cusp of phase 3 trials in the United States.
Italy's coronavirus nightmare had seemed over, with daily new cases dwindling down to the hundreds, but the latter half of August has seen the number creep back up past the 1,000 mark. There have been over 271,000 cases of infection registered, with nearly 35,500 deaths as a result in Italy.
