In a divided world, the Oxford vaccine proves what international collaboration can achieve

The rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, following its approval by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, has come as a huge relief to the UK, where COVID cases have exceeded 2.5 million and more than 75,000 people have died. With the UK now in a third national lockdown, the vaccine provides a pathway out of the pandemic for the first time.

We’re immensely proud of our role in enabling the clinical trials of this vaccine which involved 10,000 participants in five different Brazilian states, in what was one of the largest trials of any COVID vaccine in the world. The economic viability of the jab – due to the vaccine’s comparative ease of storage and distribution – means that the end of this pandemic, while still a way off, can now be glimpsed.