More data needed on AstraZeneca COVID vaccine trials: WHO scientists
London: The World Health Organization's top scientist says more data is needed to determine if the coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca works.
Oxford and AstraZeneca reported on Monday that their vaccine appeared 62% effective in people who received two doses and 90% effective when volunteers were given a half dose followed by a full dose. They later acknowledged a manufacturing issue had resulted in a half dose mistakenly being administered as the first dose to some participants.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, WHO's chief scientist, said at a Friday media briefing that "the numbers are still too small to really come to any definitive conclusions". In the study, 2,741 people got a half dose followed by a full dose while 8,895 people got two full doses. None of the people in the half-dose regimen were over age 55. "It's hard to compare these two groups," she said.
She said the agency had heard AstraZeneca would like to conduct a full study testing the half dose followed by a full-dose regimen, noting that the other ongoing research evaluating the vaccine uses two full doses.
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