00:00vaccines and therapeutics in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic.
00:05In many ways, the development, manufacture and distribution of effective vaccines to prevent
00:11COVID-19 and the identification of an effective therapeutic or drug to treat COVID patients
00:18are two of the success stories of the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic was caused by a new
00:24pathogen, SARS-CoV-2. As a result, there were no vaccines and no clinically proven therapeutics
00:33or drugs available to combat the disease at the start of the pandemic. The discovery,
00:39development and approval of new vaccines can take between 10 and 20 years. But within a year of its
00:47first case of COVID-19, the UK had developed the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine and had authorised
00:55access to two more, the Pfizer, BioNTech and the Moderna vaccines. It is vital in the context of
01:03a whole population vaccination programme in which the state is asking people to be vaccinated in part
01:10to protect others, that people are adequately supported when side effects do occur. A sufficiently
01:18supportive government scheme must be in place to help such people and their loved ones.
01:24I have found that the current scheme for those who have been injured as a result of having a vaccine,
01:29the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, is not sufficiently supportive and requires reform.
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