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Novavax Inc. said on Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine appears to be 89% effective based on the initial findings of a UK study and that it also appears to work – but not as well – against new mutated versions of the virus circulating in this country and South Africa. .
The announcement comes amid concerns over whether a variety of vaccines being deployed around the world will be potent enough to protect against worrying new variants. – and as the world is in desperate need of new types of fire to increase scarce supplies.
The study of 15,000 people in Britain is still ongoing. But an interim analysis found that 62 participants had so far been diagnosed with COVID-19 – only six of them in the group who received the vaccine and the rest who received dummy injections.
The infections came at a time when Britain was experiencing a surge in COVID-19 caused by a more contagious variant. Preliminary analysis found that more than half of the trial participants who were infected had the mutated version. The numbers are very low, but Novavax said they suggested the vaccine was almost 96% effective against the old coronavirus and almost 86% effective against the new variant. Results are based on cases that occurred at least one week after the second dose.
“These two numbers are spectacular demonstrations of our vaccine’s ability to develop a very potent immune response,” Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said on an investor call Thursday night.
Scientists were even more concerned about a variant first discovered in South Africa and carrying different mutations. Results from a smaller Novavax study in that country suggest the vaccine works but not as well as it does against the UK variant.
The South African study included HIV-positive volunteers. Among seronegative volunteers, the vaccine appears to be 60% effective. Including the HIV-positive volunteers, the overall protection was 49%, the company said. While genetic testing is still ongoing, so far around 90% of COVID-19 diseases found in the South African study are appearing due to the new mutant.
“These are good results. 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 which now causes over 90% of new cases in this country, “we are still seeing the effectiveness of the vaccine,” she said.
More worrying is what the study showed on an entirely different issue – the chances of people getting COVID-19 a second time, said South African study leader Shabir Madhi of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Tests suggest that nearly a third of study participants had previously been infected, but the rates of new infections in the placebo group were similar.
“Infection with early variants of the virus in South Africa does not protect” against infection with the new one, he said. “There doesn’t seem to be any derivative protection.”
Novavax said it needed more data before it could apply for UK authorization for the use of the vaccine, sometime next month. A larger study in the United States and Mexico recruited just over half of the 30,000 volunteers needed. Novavax said it is not clear whether the Food and Drug Administration will also need the data from this study before deciding whether to allow use in the United States.
Meanwhile, he’s starting to develop a version of the vaccine that could more specifically target mutations found in South Africa, in case health officials eventually decide that an updated dosage is needed.
COVID-19 vaccines train the body to recognize the new coronavirus, primarily the spike protein that covers it. But the Novavax candidate is made differently from the first clichés used. Called a recombinant protein vaccine, the Maryland-based company uses genetic engineering to cultivate harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in insect cells. Scientists extract and purify the protein, then mix it with a chemical that stimulates the immune system.
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AP medical editor Marilynn Marchione contributed.
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The Associated Press’s Department of Health and Science receives support from the Department of Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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