Updated; Britain to roll out AstraZeneca shots as virus vaccinations gather pace

London (AFP)

Britain was on Monday set to begin a mass rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, the cheap and easy to distribute shot that experts hope will help crush the pandemic, as China raced to inoculate millions with a homegrown prophylactic.

The vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, is seen as a game-changer by many experts because it does not require very cold temperatures for storage like the ones from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

That could mean greater access to the vaccine for less wealthy parts of the world in the fight against the coronavirus, which has infected nearly 85 million people with more than 1.8 million known deaths.

Britain was set to start the new drive with 530,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, as it struggled to control a severe wave of infections that has threatened to overwhelm the public health system and prompted the government to warn tougher curbs can be expected.