Oxford Covid vaccine 10% effective against South African variant, study suggests

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/08/oxford-covid-vaccine-10-effective-south-african-variant-study

Oxford Covid vaccine 10% effective against South African variant, study suggests

Mon 8 Feb 2021 09.38 GMTLast modified on Mon 8 Feb 2021 10.13 GMT

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine offers as little as 10% protection against the Covid variant first seen in South Africa, researchers have suggested.

Scientists who conducted a small-scale trial of the vaccine’s efficacy said it showed very little protection against mild to moderate infection, though they expressed hope that – in theory – it would still offer significant protection against more serious infection.
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Prof Shabir Madhi from the University of the Witwatersrand, who led the trial, said that, while the study was small, it was designed to focus on determining whether or not the vaccine had at least 60% efficacy against Covid to any degree of severity.

“The results that we now describe against the variant, the point estimate is 10%. Clearly, that is far off the 60% mark and, even if you had a larger study you are unlikely to get to a vaccine efficacy readout of even 40 or 50%,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“What the study results really tell us is that, in a relatively young age group demographic – with very low prevalence of morbidities such as hypertension and diabetes etc – the vaccine does not protect against mild to moderate infection.”

He said its effectiveness against serious infection could possibly be inferred based on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which uses “similar technology”. “Extrapolating from that, there’s still some hope that the AstraZeneca vaccine might well perform as well as the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in a different age demographic that are at highest risk of severe disease,” he said.
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