More testing of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine will be needed to determine its safety and effectiveness, scientists at Oxford University and the World Health Organization have said.
Shares of AstraZeneca fell this week after the company announced on Monday the interim results of a coronavirus vaccine study. The British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has announced that the vaccine it has developed has shown only 70% efficacy by combining two different dosing regimens.
A small group of people, all under the age of 55, inadvertently received a lower dose of the vaccine, followed by a full dose, and a larger group of people received two full doses of the vaccine. The vaccine was found to be 90% effective in the lower dose group, compared with only 62% in the two full vaccine groups.
Some US experts, including the head of the White House operation “Warp Speed”, have expressed concern about the different ages of the two groups. In response to these concerns, Pascal Sorio, CEO of AstraZeneca, told Bloomberg on Thursday, November 26, that the company is likely to launch a new study to test a lower dose of the vaccine.
“The full data will be published in a medical journal for people to check. Data snippets are not a useful way to analyze what is really going on, “he told CNBC on Friday, November 27th.
Other British government ministers and experts have also supported the AstraZeneca vaccine, saying that the final word will ultimately be given to drug regulators, who have more information on late-stage clinical trials of the vaccine.
Poll, what do Latvians think about vaccination against Covid-19
On Friday, November 27, the United Kingdom asked its independent drug regulator to evaluate the Covid-19 vaccine, jointly developed by the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, as part of its formal approval process for temporary supply. This means that the AstraZeneca vaccine could be distributed throughout the country by the end of the year.
– .
