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SINGAPORE – Late-stage human trials for the Covid-19 vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford and biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca showed the vaccine could be as effective as 90 percent, the company said on Monday (23 May November).
A lower dose appeared to be more effective, preliminary results showed.
With the dosing regimen in which volunteers were given a half dose of the vaccine first, followed by a full dose at least one month apart, the efficacy was 90%.
But when the volunteers received two full doses at least a month apart, the efficacy was 62 percent.
Combined analysis of both dosing regimens involving more than 11,000 volunteers resulted in an average efficacy of 70 percent, AstraZeneca said in a statement.
More data will continue to accumulate and additional analysis will be conducted, he added. This will help improve the efficiency reading and establish the duration of protection.
Professor Andrew Pollard, chief investigator of the Oxford vaccine trial at the university, said the findings showed the vaccine was effective.
“It’s exciting, we have found that one of our dosing regimens can be around 90 percent effective and if this dosing regimen is used, more people could be vaccinated with the planned vaccine supply,” he added.
In September, AstraZeneca stopped trials of the vaccine after one person involved became ill. The trials were then allowed to resume.
Serious adverse events occur when a volunteer in a vaccine trial ends up in the hospital, even if it was due to other causes, such as a traffic incident. When such events occur, an independent body of experts steps in to review the data and decide whether or not the serious adverse event was caused by the experimental vaccine.
AstraZeneca said in a statement Monday that no serious safety events related to the vaccine had been confirmed and that it was well tolerated in both dosage regimens.
AstraZeneca’s latest update comes after Pfizer and Moderna, the companies behind two other pioneers in the Covid-19 vaccine, revealed positive preliminary results from their own late-stage trials.
Pfizer said on November 18 that final results from the last stage of the trial of its Covid-19 vaccine show that it was 95 percent effective, while Moderna said on November 16 that preliminary data showed that its vaccine had a 94.5 percent effective in preventing Covid-19.
Pfizer submitted an application to the US Food and Drug Administration on November 20 for an emergency use authorization of the vaccine, and Moderna is planning a similar measure.
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