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Some health experts believe that confidence in the vaccine has eroded.
According to Euronews, the COVID-19 vaccine has been shown to be 70% effective on average, based on the results of large-scale studies announced Monday. The vaccine appeared to be 62% effective in those who received two full doses, but increased to 90% in those who received half doses.
AstraZeneca acknowledged that giving half a dose was initially a “mistake,” according to Reuters. The plan was for patients in the British study to receive two full doses of the vaccine a month apart, but some received half doses.
The news of the dosage error comes as the world turns to Covid-19 vaccines to help end the 1.4 million-life pandemic.
Neither the initial public statements from Oxford University nor AstraZeneca mentioned the dosage error, but AstraZeneca’s head of non-cancer research and development, Mene Pangalos, told Reuters on Monday that the reason for the mismanagement was the good luck.
The results raised questions from experts
AstraZeneca told NBC News that the studies were conducted “to the highest standards,” but how the results were obtained and reported raised questions for experts.
“AstraZeneca / Oxford scores poorly on transparency and rigor when it comes to the vaccine study results they reported,” Natalie Dean, assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, wrote on Twitter, adding that reporting an analysis based on in a dosing error it was not “desirable”.
Another point of confusion comes from the decision to collect the results of two groups of participants who received different dosage levels to achieve an average efficiency of 70%, said an associate member of the Chatham House global health program, writes Thought.
“You did two studies that used different dosages and you got a result that is not representative,” he said.
Experts say it’s hard to know whether the efficacy seen in the small group of people (2,741 people) is real or a statistical oddity, although AstraZeneca said all of its results were statistically significant.
However, some experts point out that vaccine studies are an experiment and that chance findings are normal.
Rigorous control by regulators is required
“It was a very lucky mistake,” said Nicola Stonehouse, professor of molecular virology at the University of Leeds. “It’s an experiment and sometimes the experiments don’t turn out the way you think. Sometimes things are unexpected. But they figured out what happened and that’s good experimental science.”
But Stonehouse cautioned that only a summary of the results has been released so far, not the actual data, and regulators will need to monitor closely to ensure the results do not undermine public confidence in the billion-dollar worldwide vaccination effort. from the people .
