AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Up to 90% Effective in Late-Stage Trials

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AstraZeneca-Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Up to 90% Effective in Late-Stage Trials

The British laboratory AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford said Monday in a joint statement that the vaccine against COVID-19 they developed showed “an efficacy of 70%” in the tests.

“The efficacy and safety of this vaccine confirm that it will be very effective against COVID-19 and that it will have an immediate impact on this public health emergency,” AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot said in a statement.

This vaccine, whose clinical trials are carried out, among other countries, in the United Kingdom and Brazil, has, however, an efficacy much lower than the close to 95% announced for the vaccines produced by its rivals Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna.

But it uses a more traditional technology than its two competitors, which makes it less expensive and easier to store, since it does not need to be kept at a very low temperature.

AstraZeneca estimated in the statement that its vaccine is “highly effective” in preventing the disease, and noted that during the tests no participant developed serious forms of coronavirus or had to be hospitalized.

Preliminary results included trials in more than 2,000 people, of whom 131 contracted the disease.

Efficacy was between 62% and 90% depending on the number of doses applied. In total, large-scale phase 3 clinical trials span 60,000 people worldwide and are conducted in the United States, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Kenya, and Latin America.

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