Novavax Inc. said it Thursday COVID-19 vaccine appears to be 89% effective based on early findings from a UK study and that it also appears to work – although not as well – against new mutant strains of the virus circulating in that country and South Africa.
The announcement stems from concerns as to whether a variety of vaccines being rolled out around the world will be strong enough to protect against worrying new varieties – and also the world needs new types of shoots to boost scarce supplies.
The survey of 15,000 people in Great Britain is still ongoing. But an interim analysis found that so far 62 participants have been diagnosed with COVID-19 – only six of them in the group who received the vaccine and the rest who received fake injections.
The infections occurred at a time when Britain was experiencing a jump in COVID-19 caused by a more contagious variant. A preliminary analysis found that more than half of the trial participants who became infected had the mutated version. The numbers are very small, but Novavax said they suggest the vaccine is nearly 96% effective against the older coronavirus and nearly 86% effective against the new variant.
Scientists are even more concerned about a strain first discovered in South Africa that carries several mutations – and results from a smaller Novavax study suggest the vaccine works, but not nearly as well as against the variant from Great Britain.
The South African study included some volunteers with HIV. The vaccine appears to be 60% effective among HIV-negative volunteers. Including the immunocompromised volunteers, protection was generally 49%, the company said. While genetic testing is still ongoing, so far about 90% of the COVID-19 diseases found in the South African study have been found to be due to the new mutant.
The preliminary findings may help Novavax get approval for its vaccine in Britain, but the US government is funding a much larger study that is still recruiting volunteers.
Vaccines against COVID-19 train the body to recognize the new coronavirus, usually the spike protein that envelops it. But the Novavax candidate is made different from the first shots used. The Maryland company, which is called a recombinant protein vaccine, uses genetic engineering to grow harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in insect cells. Scientists extract and purify the protein, then mix it with an immune-boosting chemical.