ONE of the lead developers of the Oxford Covid vaccine has praised the team around him in the city, upon the two-year anniversary of clinical trials beginning.
Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who was knighted last year for services to public health, especially in the pandemic, is director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, a part of the University of Oxford.
In a wide-ranging interview with this newspaper, Prof Pollard also discussed the controversial sale of an Oxfordshire vaccine centre and rare blood clots, which saw some countries stop giving out the Oxford vaccine.
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On the last two years, Prof Pollard was quick to highlight the importance of the vast network of people around him in the development of the Oxford jab.
He said: “It’s certainly been a remarkably intense experience.
“I’m just one of a large team of people – hundreds of people here in Oxford, and a global programme with thousands of people, and then those who took part in the trials.
“It’s only been two years ago, and we’ve gone from first dose to three billion – that seems remarkable and astonishing in itself.
“It does feel like it was yesterday when it was all kicking off, but it also feels like it’s been 10 years of effort from everybody.”
While his own efforts to develop the vaccine may seem the high point in Prof Pollard’s career, he said in reality, his recent work has changed very little from the previous 25 years.
“To some externally, it might seem to be the pinnacle of my career, but the vaccine work we do has a huge impact on families,” he said.
“It’s very privileging to do things which change lives.
“Programmes which every year change hundreds and hundreds of lives are just as important as the Covid one – particularly for children where many lives are saved every year.
“It’s unusual in the sense that in the day to day of developing vaccines, it’s been no different to the last 25 years.
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“It’s the scrutiny which is a different experience, but the work is exactly the same.
“It’s definitely true that as a result of intense interest, there’s been an enormous recognition of the university.
“From the invention step to licensing of a vaccine, to see an institution do that has been hugely visible.
“Normally, vaccine development takes many years and sometimes more than a decade, whereas this wasn’t the case with the Covid vaccine.”
Earlier this month, the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre in Harwell was sold to Catalent, a private pharmaceutical company.
Protestors outside Oxford Town Hall last month called for a Government rethink on the decision to sell.
READ AGAIN: UK vaccine manufacturing centre in Oxfordshire sold
On the sale of the centre, Prof Pollard said having the capacity to manufacture vaccines is what is most essential.
He said: “The really important thing is we need manufacturing capacity – one of the biggest challenges for us at the beginning of the pandemic was that we needed tens of thousands, but we could only produce 1,000 at a time.
“The fact we couldn’t go as fast as we wanted when we had to have enough to respond to what we needed.
“Having the capacity is the most important thing.”
Several EU countries halted Oxford jabs last year over blood clot fears, something Prof Pollard was disappointed by, saying people will have died due to not getting the vaccine.
“The important thing about it is that while reports started to emerge, we had a system to detect very rare side effects,” he said.
“The ability of our regulatory bodies to pick up side effects was very reassuring.
“As it turned out with all the information, they were incredibly rare events, but also very important.
“Although it was upsetting with some of the reports, some people will have died as a result of not getting the vaccine in some countries.”
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