The results of the South African study, which suggest that the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine offers reduced protection against the Covid-19 variant first identified there, are in many respects ‘exactly what we would have expected’, lead researcher on the Oxford vaccine trial, Professor Andrew. Pollard said Tuesday.
I think this is perhaps the guideline for the future here: that we will see new variants emerge and that it will spread in the population – like most viruses that cause colds every winter – but as long as we have enough immunity to “In order to prevent serious illness, hospitalizations and death, we will do well in the future in the pandemic,” Pollard told BBC Radio 4.
Early data released on Sunday indicates that two doses of Oxford / AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine offer only ‘minimal protection’ against mild and moderate Covid-19 against the variant first identified in South Africa. The full study, which has not yet been released, included about 2,000 volunteers who were on average 31 years old; about half received the vaccine and half received a placebo.
Pollard said the study in South Africa ‘absolutely confirms what we know about the biology of the virus; it must be transmitted between people to survive and it must be mutated to do so, and this is already being done in South Africa and it will affect mild diseases. in people who have been vaccinated. ‘
“The very important point, however, is that all vaccines – everywhere in the world where they have been tested – still prevent serious illness and death,” Pollard stressed.
He said the ‘jury’ did not want to know if the world needed new vaccines to counter variants, but that developers were preparing it if we did.
South African health officials said on Sunday that they had interrupted the start of a mass launch of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine to collect data on hospitalization figures and to see how effective the vaccine is in treating serious diseases in people with the South African variant is infected.
Pollard said the South African government had “correctly” reconsidered how it would deploy the vaccine after it was originally targeted at health workers.
He also emphasized that the South African study was a small study that looked at young adults who get only mild infections.
“What we expected in the environment is that the virus can still cause very mild infections, and that is exactly what we saw in the study,” said Pollard.
‘We are so far the only people who have a study that looks at this variant in a population of young people and that tells us about the future of this virus – that it will find ways to transmit infections, colds and so on. transfer. to the population, ”said Pollard.
“The very important question is about serious infection and we did not study it in South Africa because that was not the point of the study,” he added, noting that “we specifically asked questions about young adults. “
Commenting on the investigation into the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine, Pollard said: ‘It’s a little disturbing to find ourselves in the middle of political debates … we have a huge effort here at the University of Oxford done to be transparent in everything we do. ”