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COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have reported efficiency levels of more than 90 percent in late stage trials. Oxford University and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is safe and highly effective in preventing coronavirus disease, confirms data published in The Lancet, a medical journal, on December 8.
Detailed results from the AstraZeneca/Oxford trials have been eagerly awaited after some scientists criticised the lack of information in their first announcement last month.
However, the Lancet study gave a few extra clues about why efficacy was 62 percent for trial participants given two full doses, but 90 percent for a smaller sub-group given a half, then a full dose.
“(This) will require further research as more information becomes available from the trial,” the study said.
Less than 6% of the UK trial participants were given the lower dose regimen and not one of them was aged over 55, meaning more research will be required to investigate the vaccine’s effectiveness in elderly people that are particularly susceptible to COVID-19.
Pooling the results, overall efficacy was 70.4 percent, the data on December 8 showed. That is over the 50 percent minimum set by the US Food and Drug Administration.
The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is viewed as particularly important to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in the developing world, as it would be cheaper and easier to distribute.
“The basic message is that the overall efficacy across the trials which are reported here is about 70 percent, but with a transparent description of its instability,” said Stephen Evans, a professor of pharmacoepidemiology in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
“The statistical uncertainty is the efficacy could be as low as 55 percent or as high as 80 percent. The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have efficacies above 90 percent and are clearly more efficacious under trial conditions.”
Asked whether the half, then complete dose regimen was a mistake, Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and chief investigator into the trials, told a news conference it was”unplanned.”
COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have reported efficacy levels of more than 90 percent in late stage trials.
Head of AstraZeneca’s non-oncology development and research, Mene Pangalos, said he expected requests for approval from regulators around the globe could still be submitted this year, reported Reuters.
“We hope that once the regulatory authorities review the data, we can get acceptance any time from the completion of the entry, which could be any time from the end of this year to early next year,” he said.
However, Pollard conceded the different outcomes in the two dosage regimens complex matters.
