Novavax says its COVID-19 vaccine is the first to show significant results on protecting against the U.K. and South Africa coronavirus variants.
In an announcement Thursday, the biotech company said its treatment was 89.3 per cent effective after testing 15,000 participants involved in a late-stage U.K. trial.
A trial testing against the South African variant with 4,400 participants was 49.4 per cent effective, though preliminary results showed that 25 out of the 27 cases for which sequencing was available were that of the new variant there.
“[This] is the first vaccine to demonstrate not only high clinical efficacy against COVID-19 but also significant clinical efficacy against both the rapidly emerging UK and South Africa variants,” said Novavax CEO Stanley C. Erck in a statement.
Canada sealed a deal last week with the company to purchase 52 million doses of the vaccine, with the option to purchase another 24 million.
[ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ]
More to come…
© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
