By Denise Chow - NBC News
An experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by the biotech company Novavax is 89.3% effective in preventing COVID-19, the company announced Thursday.
Results from the Novavax phase 3 trial in the UK demonstrated the efficacy of the candidate vaccine and showed that it protected against the British variant of the virus.
Results from another trial, in South Africa, showed that it was also effective against the variant that arose there, although the efficacy was lower
.
Stanley Erck, president and CEO of Gaithersburg, Maryland-based Novavax, said the trial results show that the vaccine "has the potential to play an important role in solving this global public health crisis."
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Novavax, which received funding last year as part of the Trump Administration's Operation Warp Speed, is conducting vaccine trials in the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico and South Africa.
An interim analysis of the company's UK trial, which included more than 15,000 participants aged 18 to 84, revealed that the vaccine was
95.6% effective against the virus and 85.6% effective against the more variant. contagious from the UK
.
The first two cases of the variant of the coronavirus originating in South Africa identified in the US
Jan. 28, 202101: 54
The findings were based on 62 infections among trial participants, who received either a two-dose vaccine or a placebo.
Six of the observed infections occurred in the group that received the vaccine.
In the phase 2 trial in South Africa, however, the efficacy was 49.4%.
The study was conducted in a much smaller group of 4,400 people, many of whom were HIV positive.
In trial participants who were HIV negative, the vaccine was 60% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, according to the Novavax statement.
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The company's analysis was based on 44 infections among South African trial participants, of which 15 cases were reported in the group that received the vaccine.
90% of the coronavirus cases analyzed in the trial were caused by the South African variant, according to the company.
Moderna announced this week that its vaccine appears to be less effective against the South African variant, although it said protective antibodies remained above protective levels.
A Pfizer study, which has not been peer-reviewed, revealed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is only slightly less effective against the South African strain.
Unlike the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which use fragments of genetic code known as messenger RNA to activate the immune system to produce protective antibodies, the Novavax vaccine is based on synthesized coronavirus proteins to reactivate the immune system of the Body.
