We are correcting the following article published yesterday that contained several errors, originally entitled "Halal and kosher COVID-19 vaccine could increase vaccine uptake". The original article implied that other approved vaccines contain animal products; this is incorrect. It also implied that certain ethnic or religious minorities would potentially be more accepting of the vaccine discussed; these claims are not well supported. The article below has been corrected to address these points. The following replaces our previous article. [5 February 2021, 16h00 CET].
News that the Novavax covid-19 vaccine - trialed in Bradford - will shortly go before regulators, has been hailed as a “milestone for the UK'' by the clinician leading the local trials.
Professor Dinesh Saralaya, an honorary visiting professor at the University of Bradford, said news that the trials had been a success was “the highpoint of [his] career”.
The Novavax trials are the largest in the UK, with 15,200 people taking part, 726 of those from Bradford, tests were carried out at the University’s Digital Health Enterprise Zone (DHEZ).
The first interim analysis reported 62 cases of COVID-19-positive cases, of which 56 occurred in the placebo group versus six the vaccine group.
Prof Saralaya said Novovax is the first vaccine to show efficacy against the Kent variant (89%) and South African strain (50%). It has overall efficacy of 89.3 per cent. Efficacy against the original COVID-19 strain was 95.6 per cent.
“In the language of vaccines, if you can reach 70 per cent efficacy, that’s the primary goal, so this surpassed all expectation,” he said.
“Novavax has a very easy cold chain, like the Oxford vaccine. Novavax will be one of the vaccines which is taken door to door,” he stated.
Preliminary safety data show that severe, serious, and medically-attended adverse events occurred at low levels and were balanced between vaccine and placebo groups.
The vaccine will shortly go before regulators. “I hope it gets approved because what this means, with the UK buying 60 million doses, is it will accelerate vaccinations and enable us to treat the entire population, so we protect the NHS and save lives. This is a milestone in the race to beat COVID-19,” Professor Saralaya said.
