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At a time, when the world is looking for protection against new variants of Covid-19, WHO’s top scientist is optimistic about claims of Novavax and Johnson and Johnsonon efficacy of their vaccines, post trials in South Africa.
Speaking at the two-day World Immunisation and Logistics Summit, started virtually in Abu Dhabi on Monday, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that the latest trials of Novavax and Johnson & Johnson vaccines have shown promising clinical efficacy.
Big gain for India
With the Indian Council of Medical Research and Serum Institute of India conducting Phase-II and -III bridging trials for Covovax, the vaccine from the US vaccine major, India may well get one more vaccine against Covid-19. Enrolment of volunteers started last week in Pune.
“Novavax and J&J conducted trials in South Africa where the new variant 1351 was circulating. There was an impact seen in the clinical efficacy, which is believed to be good enough to provide protection against the new variant,” Swaminathan said.
She, however, admitted there was still a limited data available to arrive at a conclusion on the efficacy against the new strains.
“When there were trials happening for the original virus, there were no variants. Now, we have three variants. We need epidemiological evidence to establish the efficacy of the vaccine against the new strains,” said Swaminathan.
Novavax President & CEO Stanley Erck said that the company’s vaccine candidate, NVX-CoV2373, being tested on the newly emerging escape variant of the virus in South Africa, has shown efficacy against it.
“Our vaccine has been tested against these (new) variants. We are testing it in the lab right now. But we are capable of switching for production of vaccines for the new strain. We need to know which one to make a vaccine for to make it protective. We are studying the data,” he said.
Earlier in March, Novavax had said that its vaccine candidate was being tested in two ongoing Phase 2 studies that began in August; a Phase 2b trial in South Africa that demonstrated 48.65 per cent efficacy against a newly emerging escape variant.
The company also announced the complete analysis of its Phase 2b trial taking place in South Africa, with an efficacy of 55.4 per cent among HIV-negative trial participants in a region where the vast majority of cases are of the B1.351 escape variant. Across both trials, NVX-CoV2373 demonstrated 100 per cent protection against severe disease, including all hospitalisation and death. Both studies achieved their statistical success criteria, the company had said.
Notably, a recent US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) analysis found the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine to be efficacious in trials conducted in South Africa, where a new, more contagious variant is dominant.
Covid rising
India administered 2,60,653 vaccine doses in the 24 hours ending 11 am on Monday, taking the total inoculation number to over 6.05 crore across the country.
The country reported 68,020 new cases in the last 24 hours. The Health Ministry said that 84.5 per cent of the new cases were reported from eight States, with Maharashtra reporting the highest daily new cases at 40,414. Active cases in the country reached 5,21,808 and deaths 1,61,843 as on March 29 at 8 am..
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