Live vaccine updates: Novavax jabs ‘give some protection’ against SA variant

Vaccine updates for South Africa – latest news for Friday 29 January

• A new vaccine released by Novavax has ‘89.3% efficacy’ against COVID-19 – but struggles slightly with the SA variant.
• Efficacy for 501Y.V2 drops to roughly 50-60%, showing that the mutation has ‘some resistance’ to vaccines.
• However, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins says this level of immunity ‘is still pretty good’.
• Regardless of the strain, the Novavax vaccine prevented severe disease across the board – which is the most important thing.
• South Africa will start vaccinating citizens on Monday 1 February.
• The first one million jabs will arrive at OR Tambo Airport on Monday, travelling from India via Dubai.
• A further 500 000 shots will then come to South Africa early next month.

Latest vaccine news and updates: You can follow the live developments here

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Can vaccinated people spread COVID-19 still?

It is still not known whether people vaccinated against Covid-19 can still transmit the coronavirus, the head of the EU’s medicine regulator told MEPs on Tuesday. But preliminary indications are that the vaccines in use so far across the world – by BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna – “will continue to be effective”

The South African variant, however, has been branded more complicated. Despite this, the scientific community is still optimistic that all available vaccines can do their job – and some companies are already modifying their products to deal with these mutations.

Updates: Novavax vaccine set to come online

US biotech firm Novavax said Thursday its two-shot Covid-19 vaccine showed an overall efficacy of 89.3 percent in a major Phase 3 clinical trial in Britain, and remained highly effective against a variant first identified there. But the positive news was partly offset by other results that showed it offered significantly less protection against the SA Variant.

Novavax said it began working on new vaccines against emerging strains in early January and expects to select ideal candidates in the coming days – then begin clinical testing in the second quarter of the year. The company’s preliminary analysis indicated the variant first identified in Britain was detected in more than 50% of the confirmed cases.

Efficacy by strain was calculated at 95.6% against the original COVID-19 strain, and 85.6% against the UK strain. But the level of protection was lower in a smaller, mid-stage trial conducted in South Africa.

This study enrolled just over 4,400 patients from September to mid-January, during which time the B.1.351 variant, which contains critical mutations along the virus’ spike protein, was spreading rapidly through the country. Overall efficacy was 49.4% in this trial, but the figure rose to 60% among the 94% of trial participants who were HIV-negative.

Amesh Adalja, a doctor and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told AFP it was important to keep the decreased efficacy in perspective and the vaccine was still a success.

“Sixty percent against the variant is still pretty good. Clearly, the Novavax vaccine prevented severe disease which is really in the end what matters the most.”

Amesh Adalja

[Additional reporting from AFP]