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A new study shows that the Covid 19 vaccine has one hundred percent efficacy against severe disease progression.
The Covid 19 vaccine developed by Oxford University and British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has higher efficacy than previously determined and does not lead to a higher risk of thrombosis, according to a new study. The company presented study results determined in the U.S., Chile and Peru on Monday. AstraZeneca’s vaccine has not yet been approved in the U.S., and the company now plans to start the process needed to do so.
No hits in search for blood clots in brain
AstraZeneca said Monday that an independent group of experts had raised no safety concerns. It also said a specific search for blood clots in the brain, known as sinus thrombosis, had not yielded any hits. AstraZeneca vaccinations had been temporarily halted in several European countries following reports of blood clots in patients, but have since been resumed almost everywhere. Both the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) advocated keeping the vaccine. In Austria, there had been no vaccination stop with the vaccine.
The new study shows that the Covid 19 vaccine has one hundred percent efficacy against severe courses of the disease requiring hospitalization. Overall efficacy against the virus is 79 percent, according to the study. Reports of weaker protection against infection had long accompanied the vaccine. In addition, it was only released in Austria earlier this month for people over the age of 65, after insufficient data were initially available on this age group.
32,000 participants
A total of more than 32,000 people took part in the survey in the three countries. The AstraZeneca drug is a so-called vector vaccine based on cold viruses from monkeys as “carriers.” It can be stored and transported at normal refrigerator temperatures, while the Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines require frozen storage.
“Another large clinical trial involving more than 30,000 people has shown that AstraZeneca’s Covid 19 vaccine is safe and effective,” Botond Ponner, medical director of AstraZeneca Austria, said happily in a written statement. “Our vaccine provided complete protection against serious illness and hospitalization. This protection applied regardless of whether individuals were over or under 65 years of age,” he said, emphasizing good efficacy across all age groups.
Reports of thromboses associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine recently caused confidence in the safety of AstraZeneca’s vaccine to decline further in Germany, Spain, France and Italy, according to a survey conducted in individual countries. Some 55 percent of Germans consider the vaccine unsafe, while less than a third consider it safe, according to the survey by polling firm YouGov. In France, 61 percent of respondents described the vaccine as unsafe. A majority of Britons, on the other hand, continue to view the drug, co-developed by Oxford University, as safe.
As early as the end of February, Europeans would have been more hesitant about the vaccine than those from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna. The halt to vaccinations with the Swedish-British manufacturer’s vaccine because of concerns about blood clots further damaged public perceptions about safety, YouGov said.
- source: nachrichten.at/picture: swr.de
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