AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Designer On Struggles With Variants, Stigma

NPR

Published February 25, 2021 at 12:06 PM EST

A medic prepares to administer a dose of an AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. (Kyiv's City Hall Press Office via AP)

The Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine will be at the forefront of international vaccination efforts, due to its high production capacity and less-strict cold storage needs.

But the vaccine has faced setbacks: In Europe, many see it as “second-class” compared to Pfizer-BioNTech’s, and the South African virus variant has been shown to drastically reduce the vaccine’s effectiveness.

Host Jane Clayson speaks with professor Sarah Gilbert, who led one of the two research teams that developed the AstraZeneca vaccine, about the next steps.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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