The prospect of a vaccine in the first quarter of 2021 gives reason for optimism that the spring will be better, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday after he announced a new national lockdown for England until December, according to Reuters report.
"I am optimistic that this will feel very different and better by the spring. It's not just that we have ever better medicines and therapies, and the realistic hope of a vaccine in the first quarter of next year," Johnson said at a news conference.
Aspen okays J&J vaccine production in S Africa
Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. agreed to make the Covid-19 vaccine candidate being developed by Johnson & Johnson at a factory in South Africa, a move that could help with distribution on a continent with otherwise limited manufacturing capacity, according to a Bloomberg report.
Africa’s biggest drugmaker has the capacity to produce 300 million doses a year at the plant in Port Elizabeth if the shot is approved, the company said in a statement on Monday. J&J’s experimental inoculation against the virus that’s swept the world this year is still in clinical trials, after a brief pause last month after a patient became sick.
