Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shows 74% efficacy in large US trial

AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated 74% efficacy at preventing symptomatic disease, a figure that increased to 83.5% in people aged 65 and older, according to long-awaited results of the company’s US clinical trial published on Wednesday.

Overall efficacy of 74% was lower than the interim 79% figure reported by the British drugmaker in March, a result AstraZeneca revised days later to 76% after a rare public rebuke from health officials that the figure was based on “outdated information.”

The data looked at more than 26,000 volunteers in the United States, Chile and Peru, who received two doses of the vaccine spaced about a month apart. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

There were no cases of severe or critical symptomatic COVID-19 among the more than 17,600 participants who got the vaccine, compared with 8 such cases among the 8,500 volunteers who got the placebo. There were also two deaths in the placebo group but none among those who received the vaccine.

“I was pleasantly surprised,” Dr. Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University and one of the study’s investigators, said of the overall result. “It was also highly protective against severe disease and hospitalization,” she said.

There were no cases of a rare but serious blood clotting side effect called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia that has been linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine developed with Oxford University researchers.

AstraZeneca said in late July it planned to file for full approval with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, rather than seek emergency use authorization. Chief Executive Pascal Soriot told a media briefing at the time he hoped the vaccine could still play a role in the United States, even though the process was taking longer than expected.

The company is exploring booster doses for people whohave already been vaccinated with two doses of either its ownshot or mRNA-based vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna.

The vaccine, known as Vaxzevria, is authorized for use in more than 170 countries. A spokesperson said the company expects to file for U.S. approval later this year.

Durbin said she does not expect Vaxzevria to be used much in the United States, but securing FDA approval “does give them gravitas.”

Facebook Notice for EU! You need to login to view and post FB Comments!

The post AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shows 74% efficacy in large US trial appeared first on ARY NEWS.



from ScienceTechnology – ARY NEWS https://ift.tt/2YaCOqQ https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio...

Leading VCs discuss how COVID-19 has impacted the world of digital health

In December 2019, Extra Crunch spoke to a group of investors leading the charge in health tech to discuss where they saw the most opportunity in the space leading into 2020 . At the time, respondents highlighted startups in digital therapeutics, telehealth and mental health that were improving medical practitioner efficiency or streamlining the distribution of care, amongst a variety of other digital health markets that were garnering the most attention. Where top VCs are investing in digital health In the months since, the COVID-19 crisis has debilitated national healthcare systems and the global economy. Weaknesses in healthcare systems have become clearer than ever, while startups and capital providers have struggled to operate while wide swaths of the market effectively shut down. Given significant volatility and the rapid changes seen in the worlds of healthcare, venture and startups broadly, we wanted to understand which inefficiencies might have been brought to light, w...

News-reading app Flipboard expands local coverage, including coronavirus updates, to 12 more U.S. metros

Earlier this year, personalized news aggregation app Flipboard expanded into local news . The feature brought local news, sports, real estate, weather, transportation news and more to 23 cities across the U.S. Today, Flipboard is bringing local news to 12 more U.S. metros and is adding critical coronavirus local coverage to all of the 35 supported locales. The 12 new metros include the following:  Baltimore, Charlotte, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Orlando, Raleigh, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, and Tampa Bay. They join the 23 cities that were already supported:  Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington, D.C. To offer local news in its app, Flipboard works with area partners, big and small, like The Plain Dealer’s Cleveland.com , ...