(Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson said on Friday that its single-dose vaccine was 66% effective in preventing COVID-19 in a major global multi-variant lawsuit, giving health officials another weapon to deal with the pandemic.
In the study of nearly 44,000 volunteers, the level of protection against moderate and severe COVID-19 ranged from 72% in the United States to 66% in Latin America and only 57% in South Africa, from where a worrying variant has spread.
The data showed that the effect of the vaccine on the South African variant was reduced compared to the unaltered virus, but infectious disease and public health experts said it could still help limit the spread of the virus and reduce deaths. to prevent.
Mid-phase data from Novavax on Thursday also showed lower effectiveness in South Africa.
Rival shots from Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna were both about 95% effective in preventing symptomatic disease in pivotal studies when given in two doses.
Those trials were mainly conducted in the United States and before the emergence of new variants. This means the world is racing against the clock and with limited supplies to vaccinate as many people as possible and quickly to avoid virus spikes.
COVID-19 is on the rise in 37 countries and more than 101 million are infected worldwide.
American infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci said the world needs to get vaccinated quickly to try to anticipate these changes in the virus.
“It’s really a wake-up call for us to be nimble and able to adapt as this virus will certainly continue to evolve,” Fauci said.
The main goal of J & J was the prevention of moderate to severe COVID-19, and the vaccine was 85% effective in stopping serious diseases and preventing hospitalization in all regions and against multiple variants 28 days after immunization.
That “will potentially protect hundreds of millions of people from the serious and fatal consequences of COVID-19,” said Paul Stoffels, J&J Chief Scientific Officer.
Shares of J&J fell 4% to $ 162.7 at 5:00 p.m. GMT, with some Wall Street analysts saying the vaccine’s effectiveness was lower than rivals. Shares of Moderna were up 8% to $ 172.80.
SEARCH APPROVAL
J&J plans to seek emergency use clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration next week and will be contacting the European Union and the rest of the world shortly.
It has said it plans to deliver 1 billion doses of the vaccine, which it will make in the United States, Europe, South Africa and India by 2021.
Public health officials are counting on it to increase much-needed supply and simplify immunization in the United States, which has struck a deal to buy 100 million doses of J & J’s vaccine and an option for another 200 million.
J&J said the vaccine would be ready immediately upon emergency approval, but Stoffels declined to say how many doses.
“The key is not just overall efficacy, but specifically efficacy against serious illness, hospitalization and death,” said Walid Gellad, associate professor of health policy at the University of Pittsburgh.
J & J’s vaccine uses a cold virus to introduce coronavirus proteins into cells and trigger an immune response, while the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines use a new technology called messenger RNA.
Unlike these vaccines, J & J’s do not require a second injection weeks after the first or need to be kept frozen, making it a strong candidate for use in parts of the world where transportation and cold storage are problematic.
“Most countries are still desperate for doses, regardless of whether or not the vaccine is considered highly effective. Moderately effective will work fine for now, ”said Michael Breen, director of Infectious Diseases and Ophthalmology at research firm GlobalData.
‘STUNNING’
Several studies have appeared this month showing that a South African variant has mutated in areas of the virus that are the main targets of vaccines, decreasing their effectiveness.
“What we’re learning is that there are different effectiveness in different parts of the world,” Stoffels told Reuters.
In a sub-study of 6,000 volunteers in South Africa, Stoffels said, the J&J vaccine was 89% effective at preventing serious illness. In the South African portion of the trial, 95% of the cases were infections with the South African variant.
“I am overwhelmed by the fact that this vaccine protected against serious diseases even in South Africa,” said Glenda Gray, lead investigator of the South African vaccine trial.
In the J&J survey, which was conducted in eight countries, 44% of the participants were from the United States, 41% from Central and South America, and 15% from South Africa. Just over a third of the volunteers were over 60.
Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Additional reporting by Manas Mishra, Dania Nadeem and Manojna Maddipatla in Bengalaru, Rebecca Spalding and Michael Erman in New York and Promit Mukherjee in Johannesburg; Written by Alexander Smith; Edited by Peter Henderson, Edwina Gibbs, Keith Weir and Caroline Humer