British scientists who worked on the Astrazeneca COVID-19 jab are calling for the UK to stockpile vaccines for the bubonic plague, as fears about the next global pandemic grow.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph reports that scientists with the Oxford Vaccine Group are worried the UK could be caught unprepared by a global pandemic of the disease which killed tens of millions of people the Middle Ages.
The Oxford Vaccine Group has been trialling a plague vaccine since 2021, on a group of 40 healthy adults. The group’s leader, Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, says the vaccine has proven a success, and results of the trial will be submitted to a scientific journal for peer review within weeks. Further clinical trials are expected.
Pollard said: “There are no licensed plague vaccines in the UK. Antibiotics are the only treatment. There are some licensed vaccines in Russia.
“The risk in the UK is currently very low. Previous historical pandemics that had high mortality were associated with initiation from fleas on rodents but were driven by person to person spread.”
Military scientists in the UK believe the plague, which still exists in isolated pockets around the world, has the “potential for pandemic spread.” Scientists from the UK government’s biological research facility at Porton Down recently wrote a paper claiming that vaccine production needs to be enhanced “to prevent future disastrous plague outbreaks.”
Experts from the Oxford Vaccine Group were responsible for the creation of the Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which was recently subject to a global recall after serious side effects were acknowledged. Astrazeneca claimed the withdrawal was due to commercial rather than health concerns, as newer vaccines designed for emerging variants enter the market.