Novavax claims its Covid-19 vaccine is 89% effective, but less effective against South African variant

Novavax, which is based in Maryland, has never put a vaccine on the market. The Trump administration has given the company $ 1.6 billion to develop and test the vaccine, begin large-scale manufacturing, and reserve 100 million doses.

Test Details: Novavax tested its vaccine in the UK at a time when a different variant of the virus – first detected in Britain and more transmissible than previous versions – began to circulate. The company’s analysis of the Phase III trial of 15,000 people found the vaccine to be 95.6% effective against the original Covid-19 strain and 85.6% effective against the UK variant B.1.1. 7.

Initial data from a separate Phase IIb clinical trial of 4,400 people in South Africa revealed that the vaccine was only 49.4% effective against the variant first discovered in that country. More than 92% of the sequenced PCR samples taken from Covid patients in the South African trial were identified as this variant, known as B.1.351.

Novavax says it is developing booster shots of its vaccine to better protect against new strains of Covid and plans to start testing them in humans in the second quarter of 2021.