BREAKING NEWS: Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine prevents 90% of infections including 85% of UK ‘super-covid’ cases – but it is only 50% effective against the South Africa variant
- Novavax’s vaccine uses synthesized pieces of the surface protein that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells and spurs antibody production
- In a late-stage UK study, the vaccine was shown to be 89.3% effective at preventing COVID-19 infection, including against the B 1.1.7. variant
- A middle-stage study in South Africa found that the shot was just 49.3% effective at preventing illness
Novavax Inc says its experimental COVID-19 vaccine is safe and nearly 90% effective at preventing infection, an interim analysis shows.
On Thursday, the Maryland-based company released results from two clinical trials, one held in the UK and the other in South Africa.
Both countries have seen highly infectious variants crop up in recent months that have spread around the world.
A third clinical trial being conducted in the U.S. is still in the process of recruiting participants and is not expected to reveal data for several months.
In the UK late-stage trial, just 62 of more than 15,000 participants fell ill, showing 89.3 percent efficacy.
Novavax, a little-known company supported by the U.S. federal government’s Operation Warp Speed, said for the first time on Thursday that its Covid-19 vaccine offered robust protection against the virus. But it also found that the vaccine is not as effective against the fast-spreading variant first discovered in South Africa, another setback in the global race to end a pandemic that has already killed more than 2.1 million people.
The news was problematic for the United States, which hours earlier reported its first known cases of the contagious variant in two unrelated people in South Carolina. And it came just days after Moderna and Pfizer said that their vaccines were also less effective against the same variant.
Novavax, which makes one of six vaccine candidates supported by Operation Warp Speed last summer, has been running trials in Britain, South Africa, the United States and Mexico. It said Thursday that an early analysis of its 15,000-person trial in Britain revealed that the two-dose vaccine had an efficacy rate of nearly 90 percent there. But in a small trial in South Africa, the efficacy rate dropped to just under 50 percent. Almost all the cases that scientists have analyzed there so far were caused by the variant, known as B.1.351. The data also showed that many trial participants were infected with the variant even after they had already had Covid.
In a late-stage UK study, the Novovax vaccine was shown to be 89.3% effective at preventing COVID-19 infection, but it was just 49.3% effective against the South Africa variant. Pictured: Three potential coronavirus vaccines are kept in a tray at Novavax labs in Gaithersburg, Maryland, March 20
Roughly half were infected with the UK variant known as B.1.1.7, and the vaccine appeared to be almost as effective in that group.
Results showed 95.6 percent efficacy the originally circulating variant and 85.6 percent against B 1.1.7.
But in South Africa, the Novavax shot was not as protective and was found to be just 49.4% effective against COVID-19.
Novavax, which has not produced a vaccine before, made one of six vaccine candidates given funding for research the Trump’s administration’s Operation Warp Speed last summer.
Its shot that contains synthesized pieces of the surface protein that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells.
The idea is that the protein will cause human cells to spur production of antibodies to fight the infection.
The biotechnology company has been running trials in Britain, South Africa, the U.S. and Mexico
However, the U.S.-based, late-stage trial did not begin until December after Novavax had issues in scaling up the vaccine’s manufacturing,.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.