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- Novavax said Thursday that its vaccine was 89% effective in preventing cases of Covid-19, based on the results of a trial in the United Kingdom.
- In a trial in South Africa, the vaccine was much less effective, possibly due to a variant of the coronavirus that has emerged there.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
Novavax said Thursday that its experimental coronavirus vaccine was highly effective in preventing the disease in a UK trial, but the disappointing results of a study of the same vaccine in South Africa raise questions.
The vaccine developer said its injection was 89% effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19, according to a trial of more than 15,000 patients that took place in the UK. The company published the results in a press release and said it plans to submit them to a scientific journal for review.
But the results of a smaller trial in South Africa, the results weren’t as promising. The vaccine was only 49% effective in preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19 in that study of 4,400 participants. Among people who are HIV negative, it was 60% effective.
The trial, which took place from August to mid-January, occurred when a new variant emerged in South Africa that is more infectious.
“The greater efficacy of the vaccine in the UK than in South Africa is because the variants circulating in South Africa are less sensitive to vaccine-induced immune responses,” says Professor Shabir Madhi, Executive Director of the Research Unit of Vaccine and Infectious Disease Analysis (VIDA) at Wits, and principal investigator on the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine trial in South Africa.
“However, the 60% reduction in the risk of contracting Covid-19 disease in vaccinated people in South Africans underscores the value of this vaccine in preventing the disease of the highly worrisome variant currently circulating in South Africa and spreading. globally. This is the only Covid-19 for which we now have objective evidence that it protects against the dominant variant in South Africa. “
Some preliminary research has raised concerns that current coronavirus vaccines may not work as well against that variant, although both Moderna and Pfizer have said they hope their vaccines will still work.
The variant, B.1.351, was discovered in December and has spread to 30 countries.
Novavax is still enrolling patients for a broader trial of its vaccine in the United States and Mexico. The company said it expects to finish enrolling volunteers for that 30,000-person trial by mid-February.
It is unclear whether US regulators would require the results of the US trial before making a decision on whether to allow the vaccine to be administered more widely. Novavax said it has already shared information about its vaccine with the UK pharmaceutical regulator.
Additional reports from the Business Insider SA team.
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