The vaccine against Covid-19, developed by US biotechnology company Novavax, is 100 percent effective in protecting against severe cases of the disease, including hospitalization and death, the company said on Thursday after the vaccine was tested.
However, in mild to moderate cases, this vaccine is significantly less effective against the South African variant of the new coronavirus, according to experimental results.
The results announced on Thursday are derived from the final analyzes following the interim results announced at the end of January.
In a phase 3 clinical trial in the United Kingdom involving 15,000 people aged 18 to 84 years, including 27% over the age of 65 years, the vaccine was 96.4% effective against mild, moderate and severe cases of the new coronavir strain.
The effectiveness of the vaccine was reduced to 89.7% when the trial included people infected with the new variant, which was first diagnosed in the UK. B.1.1.7.
In a phase 2b trial in South Africa involving around 2,600 people, the vaccine was only 48.6% effective. However, it increased to 55.4% when only experimental data on HIV-negative volunteers were analyzed.
In both trials, the NVX-CoV2373 vaccine was 100% effective in protecting against severe cases of Covid-19.
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