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Automaker AstraZeneca even said Monday that its coronavirus vaccine, developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, was an average 70 percent effective in protecting against the virus in two study segments. This result turned out that the research consisted of two parts: a small group of subjects achieved 90 percent efficacy, and the participants received half a dose first and then a full dose a month later. In the second, larger group, the result was only 62 percent, here the subjects received twice the same full dose. Comparing the two partial results, the vaccine was approximately 70 percent.
However, according to a Bloomberg report, it has now been revealed that there may have been a failure in the machinery, as well as in the research and investigation design, so it is highly questionable whether we can actually speak of 70 efficiency. percent.
None of the defects jeopardized the safety of the subjects, it’s just that the most successful group received only half the dose due to a manufacturing defect, and there were no participants over the age of 55 among them. This is not at all from a health point of view, but from a research methodological point of view it is very problematic: the results of the most successful group become invalid and
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The problem started with the fact that during production, only half of the first dose of vaccine from the first group was put into the vial than it should have been originally; this is a manufacturing error. The second is already a methodological problem, since the most successful results were obtained in a fundamentally younger group of participants, and the coronavirus is much more dangerous for the elderly. In the original ad, AstraZeneca did not describe any of the dollars.
It may also be a problem that the vaccine is being tested in the UK and Brazil, and the trial participants have not been vaccinated with the same placebo in the two countries.
The expert, who told Bloomberg, said the higher efficiencies are likely due to chance or younger subjects. It is definitely necessary to rethink the methodology and recalculate the efficiency, so that only 62% efficiency is guaranteed for the moment, which, however, is still above the 50% limit set by the World Health Organization.
Researchers from the University of Oxford have stated in the case that after realizing the dosage error, they decided, in consultation with the licensors, to continue further investigation with the correct dosage. Both the university and AstraZeneca have promised to refine the numbers in the future and also report on how long the coronavirus vaccine will protect.
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