Novavax’s vaccine candidate is nearly 90 percent effective against COVID-19 – but just under 50 percent effective against the new South African variant of the virus, the company announced Thursday.
A UK study found that the Novavax vaccine was 89.3 percent effective in protecting test participants from developing COVID-19 symptoms, the company said in a press statement.
The good results came despite the new highly transmissible coronavirus variant now circulating in the UK.
“These are spectacular results and we are very pleased to have helped Novavax develop this vaccine,” said Stanley C. Erck, who leads the company in Maryland.
“The efficacy shown against the emerging variants is also extremely encouraging.
But more preliminary results from a small, separate study in South Africa – where another coronavirus mutation wreaks havoc – showed that the Novavax injection was only 49.4 percent effective, meaning just over half of that the subjects received the injection and then still became ill. .
Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines in use have been shown to be more than 90 percent effective against COVID-19.
As of Thursday, New York has 22 cases of the new British coronavirus strain. The first two cases of the South African species in the US have just been found in South Carolina, officials announced Thursday.
Modern has said it is developing a vaccine booster to combat the strain first identified in South Africa.