British scientists will investigate the possibility of combining flu and covid vaccines in a single injection, in order to speed up future immunization programs, has advanced the director of the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Center (VMIC), Matthew Duchars.
This center, founded by several UK universities and which has 215 million pounds of public funding (252 million euros / 295 million dollars), was announced by the Government in 2018, although its construction has accelerated as a result of the pandemic and will begin its activity in the coming months.
Combining covid and flu vaccines could save “a lot of time,” Duchards told The Telegraph newspaper. “It would be much more practical to make just one puncture, so that will be one of the aspects that we and the producers (of vaccines) are going to study,” he added.
“Let’s say we need to inoculate an annual vaccine, and people need a shot for the flu, one for the covid and one for something else. If you can put them all in one, obviously it’s better,” Duchards said.
The head of the VMIC indicated that the biotechnology center, in which the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine participate, will be in a position to produce about 70 million doses of vaccines in a period of between four and five months, once it is operational.
Duchards pointed out that the United Kingdom already has a guaranteed supply of vaccines for 2021, so the product that leaves the new manufacturing centre will not be necessary until next year.