The Oxford-Astra data will be analyzed around the world and many countries will have the vaccine.
On the day Britain began immunizing its population with a Covid-19 injection developed by Germany’s BioNTech SE and US-based Pfizer Inc., a peer-reviewed study of the UK’s own-produced vaccine left some key questions unanswered. answer.
While trial results published Tuesday in The Lancet found a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc to be safe and effective, further analysis will be needed to see how well it works in people over 55, including are at increased risk of pandemic. .
Because older adults were recruited into the studies later than younger ones, “they have had less time for cases to accumulate in those age groups and for us to measure a signal of efficacy,” said Andrew Pollard, researcher. main of the Oxford trial. “The evidence we have so far on the immune response strongly suggests that there are likely similar levels of protection across the ages.”
Launch in UK
The Pfizer-BioNTech injection, approved in Britain last week, could be approved in the US as early as this week and in the European Union before the end of the year, as governments scramble to overcome a contagion that is spreading. it has claimed more than 1.5 million lives and devastated economies. The Astra-Oxford injection appears less effective than that vaccine and another from Moderna Inc., which each showed 95% efficacy in trials, but it is expected to be cheaper and easier to implement.
The Lancet report provides the first peer-reviewed data for any of the major vaccines.
Initial data from Astra and Oxford last month seemed positive, but raised concerns about how much protection the injection would offer after trials produced two different results from two dosing regimens. The partners said their vaccine was 90% effective when given half a dose before a full-dose booster, and that two full doses showed 62% efficacy.
It was later learned that the lower dose was the result of a manufacturing error and was only tested in a younger group. Astra CEO Pascal Soriot said in an interview last month that the company would set up an additional test, probably global, to verify the 90% result. On Tuesday, the company said it is still deciding whether to conduct a further study, while Pollard said Oxford had no plans for an additional trial in the UK at this time. A separate study is already underway in the US.
No hurry
While the efficacy rate may be enough to get the vaccine approved, the variability in different subgroups and the lack of data for older people should make regulators pause to rush this, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Sam Fazeli.
“I would wait until at least the American trial, which is much more controlled in terms of doses and intervals between doses, is read aloud before approving the vaccine,” Fazeli said.
The results, based on advanced trials of 11,636 people in the UK and Brazil, were reviewed after 131 participants contracted Covid-19. Of these, 30 were in the group that received the vaccine and 101 in the control arm, which equates to an efficacy rate of 70%, according to data from The Lancet.
While the vast majority of the 175 serious adverse events were considered not to be related to Covid-19 or control injections, one case of the neurological disorder transverse myelitis may be injection-related, according to the paper.
Shares of Astra rose 0.8% in London on Tuesday.
More study
More trials are needed to corroborate the findings and an investigation of efficacy in older adults, wrote Maria Deloria Knoll and Chizoba Wonodi of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in an article accompanying the data.
The authors noted “limitations” in the results, which included less than 4% of participants older than 70 years, as well as the finding that no participant older than 55 received the mixed dose regimen. Still, they said the expected lower price of the vaccine is promising for low- and middle-income nations.
“Despite the outstanding questions and challenges in delivering these vaccines, it is hard not to be excited about these findings and the existence of three safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines,” they wrote.
Lack of clarity about the true effectiveness of the Astra-Oxford coup and plans for further study are not expected to delay regulatory approvals in the UK and the European Union, Soriot said last month, with a possible green light in Great Britain. Brittany by year. -finish. US approval won’t come until 2021, after trials were halted for nearly seven weeks after the suspected transverse myelitis incident in the UK study. The British trial resumed in less than a week.
The Oxford-Astra data will be analyzed around the world, and many countries will have the vaccine to protect their populations. It will cost a fraction of the price set by Pfizer and BioNTech, and Moderna’s injection. The Astra vaccine should also be easier to implement, with storage temperatures of between two and eight degrees Celsius, compared to minus 70 for the Pfizer injection.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
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