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Comment by godelmachine | Hacker News Reader

Is this not the one they will launch in India first?

Edit1: Just to throw in more info, Oxford plans to scale this up for mass production with Serum Institute of India and AstraZeneca.

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It is the same. But you cannot expect a vaccine to work similarly in people of two different regions having major differences in their diet, climate and lifestyles. That's why many vaccine candidates are being tested in multiple countries( read potential markets). Also, I think the UK has preferential rights at least on the initial yield of the vaccine.

AstraZeneca is licensing the "recipe" for the vaccine to other countries so yield won't be an issue.

Australia is part of this group that will be manufacturing all the dosages locally and independently.

> But you cannot expect a vaccine to work similarly in people of two different regions having major differences in their diet, climate and lifestyles.

Can you? Do you have any examples of successful vaccines that are only given in one region because they have been proven ineffective in a different region?

Cholesterol medication is given at lower doses to those with Asian background. Not a vaccine, and what is important is genetics not region.

I don’t think you understand how the biology of vaccines work.

Vaccines do have different effect on different people.

They are correct. Each country wants data showing that the vaccine works for their local population. These ideas are firmly based in Science.

This is very true and undeserving of the downvotes. A vaccine can work globally, but it is not at all guaranteed.

This is because the distribution of certain alleles, fundamental for the immune system, is heavily biased geographically [1].

[1]: http://pypop.org/popdata/

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