The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca announced Wednesday night that its COVID-19 vaccine is
76% effective in
preventing symptomatic illness, citing a new analysis of the updated results of its main clinical trial in the United States.
This week the company announced that the drug had an efficacy rate of 79% after preliminary analysis.
But health officials questioned the accuracy of the data, claiming that the manufacturer may have included "outdated information" when it made the calculations.
COVID-19: More than 45 million people in the United States have already received two doses of the vaccine
March 24, 202100: 44
AstraZeneca responded to the criticism by saying that it was working with more up-to-date information and that the most recent findings were consistent with its initial announcement that the vaccine offers strong protection.
The vaccine, jointly developed by the University of Oxford,
is 100% effective in preventing severe cases and deaths from COVID-19
, something the pharmaceutical company reiterated in its announcement on Wednesday.
[Registering for the COVID-19 vaccine is frustrating if you speak a language other than English or Spanish]
AstraZeneca has said that it will apply to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use authorization for its vaccine and that it will release the data for the scientific community to analyze in peer-reviewed journals.
Archive image of the COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca and Oxford.REUTERS
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called the situation unfortunate and called it an "unforced error."
"The truth is that this is most likely a very good vaccine
," Fauci said on ABC's 'Good Morning America' on Tuesday.
[This is how vaccination against COVID-19 is being managed in Latin America]
"
It wasn't necessary,
" he
said.
"If you look at it, the data is pretty good. But when they put it in the press release, it wasn't entirely accurate."
The FDA will ultimately make the decision on whether to grant the emergency use authorization, and health officials say that will only be done after a thorough, independent review.
If licensed for use, it
would be the fourth vaccine to be approved in the United States
.
The vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech was the first to get FDA clearance, which happened in December.
Since then, the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines have been approved for emergency use.
More than 50 countries around the world have approved the AstraZeneca vaccine.
With information from Reuters and NBC News.
