US data shows AstraZeneca vaccine effective for all adults

LONDON (AP) — AstraZeneca reported Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection among all adults in a long-anticipated U.S. study, raising hopes that the findings could help rebuild public confidence in the beleaguered shot in other countries and moving a step closer to clearance for American use.

AstraZeneca said the vaccine was 79% effective overall at preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19 — including in older people — and that none of the study volunteers who were vaccinated were hospitalized or developed severe disease.

The company also said its experts did not identify any safety concerns related to the vaccine, including finding no increased risk of rare blood clots identified in Europe.

The findings bolster AstraZeneca’s prior research in Britain and other countries, and add to real-world evidence that the shots are offering good protection as they’re used more widely.

But confidence in the vaccine has been repeatedly hit because of concerns about how data was reported from some previous trials, confusion over its efficacy in older adults and a recent scare over clotting.

AstraZeneca said it will seek clearance in the United States “in the coming weeks,” putting it on track to arrive just as the country is projected to have a big boost in supplies of three other vaccines — from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson — that already are in use.

AstraZeneca’s interim results are based on 141 COVID-19 cases in the 30,000-person trial, but officials declined to tell reporters during a news conference Monday how many were in study volunteers who received the vaccine and how many in those who got dummy shots.

Two-thirds of the volunteers received vaccine.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee will publicly debate the evidence behind the shots before the agency decides whether to allow emergency use.

Ruud Dobber, an AstraZeneca executive vice president, said that if the FDA OK’s the vaccine, the company will deliver 30 million doses immediately — and another 20 million within the first month.

The AstraZeneca shot, which has been authorised in more than 70 countries, is a pillar of a U.N.-backed project known as COVAX that aims to get COVID-19 vaccines to poorer countries, and it has also become a key tool in European countries’ efforts to boost their sluggish vaccine rollouts.

That important role in the global strategy to stamp out the pandemic make doubts about the shot especially worrying.Scientists had hoped the U.S. study would clear up some of the confusion about just how well the shots really work, particularly in older people.

Previous research suggested the vaccine was effective in younger populations, but there was no solid data proving its efficacy in those over 65, often those most vulnerable to COVID-19.

The AstraZeneca shot is what scientists call a “viral vector” vaccine.

The shots are made with a harmless virus, a cold virus that normally infects chimpanzees.

It acts like a Trojan horse to carry the coronavirus’s spike protein’s genetic material into the body that in turn produces some harmless protein.

That primes the immune system to fight if the real virus comes along.

Two other companies, Johnson & Johnson and China’s CanSino Biologics, make COVID-19 vaccines using the same technology but using different cold viruses.

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