[ad_1]
Researchers at the University of Wattwatersrand in Johannesburg said in a statement that the vaccine “provides minimal protection against the mild to moderate form of COVID-19 disease” caused by the coronavirus strain.
However, in a document to be published in full on Tuesday, AstraZeneca said that none of the 2,000 study participants had severe symptoms.
This may mean that the vaccine is still affected by a severe form of the disease, although there is not enough data yet to make a final decision.
The data not yet reviewed by other researchers “confirm the theoretical observation that the virus strain detected in PAR can spread in already vaccinated populations,” the report said.
“This study was unable to assess protection against moderate to severe illness, hospitalization, or death because it examined a target population at low risk for such consequences,” the report said.
However, vaccine developers in the UK unofficially said the results gave hope that the vaccine could help prevent deaths from infection with a strain of the virus found in PAR.
123RF.com nuotr./Medikas
“The total number of cases may not decrease, but protection against death, hospitalization and serious illness will continue,” said Sarah Gilbert, who led the development of the vaccine.
It may also take “some time” for the vaccine to prove effective against the strain of the virus in the elderly, the vaccine developer told the BBC.
“We may need to collect a large amount of research data,” he added.
The researchers are currently working to update the vaccine and are “developing a version of the vaccine that will be effective against the PAR strain,” which they “would very much like” to have developed by the fall, the researcher said.
Nadhim Zahawi, the minister overseeing the UK’s immunization campaign, said the government’s strategy to combat the spread of the strain was to continue the mass vaccination program “as soon as possible” and at a particularly rapid pace where it was detected.
The COVID-19 vaccination campaign is currently underway in the UK, as the country has been hit hard by one of the world’s largest outbreaks, which claimed the lives of more than 112,000 people.
To date, more than 11 million have been vaccinated in the country, with a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, or a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca. persons.
There has been a recent conflict between the EU and AstraZeneca over the bloc’s outrage that the company in England and Sweden is not delivering on its promises on agreed quantities of vaccines.
France, Germany and Switzerland have issued recommendations not to use the vaccine in the elderly due to the lack of relevant data.
[ad_2]
