Novavax Inc. said on Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine appears to be 89% effective according to the first findings of a British study and that it also seems to work, although not so well, against new mutated versions of the virus circulating in this country and the South -Africa. .
The announcement comes amid concerns over whether a variety of vaccines to be rolled out around the world will be strong enough to protect against new and worrying variants. – and how the world desperately needs new types of features to increase scarce supply.
The study of 15,000 people in Britain is still ongoing. But, according to a provisional analysis, 62 participants have so far been diagnosed with COVID-19, only six from the group that received the vaccine and the rest that received fake shots.
The infections occurred at a time when Britain was experiencing a jump in COVID-19 caused by a more contagious variant. A preliminary analysis found that more than half of the process participants who became infected had the mutated version. The numbers are very small, but Novavax said they suggest the vaccine is nearly 96% effective against the older coronavirus and nearly 86% effective against the new variant. Results are based on cases that occurred at least one week after the second dose.
“Both figures are dramatic demonstrations of our vaccine’s ability to develop a very powerful immune response,” Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in a call with investors Thursday at the end.
Scientists have been even more concerned about a variant first discovered in South Africa that involves different mutations. The results of a smaller Novavax study in this country suggest that the vaccine works, but not as well as it does against the UK variant.
The South African study included some HIV volunteers. Among HIV-negative volunteers, the vaccine appears to be 60% effective. Including volunteers with HIV, overall protection was 49%, the company said. Although genetic testing is still ongoing, so far approximately 90% of the COVID-19 diseases found in the South African study appear due to the new mutant.
“It simply came to our notice then. There is reason to be optimistic about the 60% effectiveness, said Glenda Gray, head of the South African Medical Research Council. Even against the new variant that now causes more than 90% of new cases in this country, “we are still seeing the effectiveness of the vaccine,” he said.
More worrying is what the study showed on a completely different issue: the chances of people receiving COVID-19 for the second time, said South African study leader Shabir Madhi of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Evidence suggested that nearly one-third of study participants had been previously infected, although rates of new infections in the placebo group were similar.
“Past infection with the first variants of the virus in South Africa does not protect” against infection by the new, he said. “There seems to be no derivative protection.”
Novavax said it needs some additional data before it can obtain British authorization for the use of the vaccine, sometime next month. A larger study in the U.S. and Mexico has enrolled just over half of the 30,000 volunteers needed. Novavax said it is unclear whether the Food and Drug Administration will also need data from this study before deciding whether to allow U.S. use.
In the meantime, it is beginning to develop a version of the vaccine that could target more specifically the mutations found in South Africa, should health authorities finally decide that an updated dosage is needed.
COVID-19 vaccines train the body to recognize the new coronavirus, primarily the spike protein that coats it. But the Novavax candidate is done differently than the first shots used. The Maryland company, called the recombinant protein vaccine, uses genetic engineering to grow harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in insect cells. Scientists extract and purify the protein and then mix it with a chemical that boosts immunity.
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AP medical writer Marilynn Marchione contributed.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.