UK health secretary reveals deal to produce Oxford University vaccine
Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has struck a deal to produce the Oxford University developed vaccine should “the science come off” according to UK health secretary Matt Hancock.
He also revealed that a second vaccine developed by Imperial College London has entered the human trial phase of its development but he opened by paying his respects to war time singer Dame Vera Lynn who died yesterday (June 18) aged 103.
Mr Hancock then moved on to the daily figures which showed 135 more people across the UK have died from the virus
He said: “Yesterday there were 1366,513 tests taking the total more than 7,250,000 tests in total and there were 1218 positive tests.
“Data from hospitals shows that broad downward direction, there were 490 admissions with Covid-19 on June 15 and and as we can see the number of people on mechanical ventilator beds is now 360.
“The number of people in hospital continues to come down in almost every region – you can see a very small uptick in the east of England but there is some movement in the variation in each of the lines.
“The overall movement continues to be down and overall down to 5193 from 5863 this time last week.
“When it comes to the number of people who sadly died with coronavirus yesterday the number of deaths reported was 135 bringing the total to 42,288 and again we can see the downward trajectory thankfully of that number and the 135 deaths is lower than this time last week.
“We put the stringent measures in place to protect people who are getting vaccinations and in the long run the best way to defeat this virus is of course to develop a vaccine.
“We've been supporting the most promising projects and as of this week the Imperial College London vaccine is now in the first phase of human clinical trials and AstoZeneca struck a deal for the manufacture of the Oxford University vaccine.
