We’re a few months short of a full two years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and countless lives have been impacted by this blight that has swept over the world. And while recovery is slowly but surely progressing, humanity has quite a ways to go before we can truly say that we’ve left this unfortunate event behind us.
Part of the restless effort put up by our experts is the development of vaccines that fight against the virus, primarily to ensure that infected individuals no longer need to fear for their lives. Since the onset of the pandemic, several pharmaceutical companies have put themselves up to the task of developing these vaccines.
Of course, the race to develop vaccines for this particular strain of coronavirus is still ongoing, and several entities are still hard at work developing the next vaccines that we may use to fight against the pandemic. One of these said companies is India-based Bharat Biotech International Ltd., who worked together with India’s own medical research agency to produce a new COVID-19 vaccine called Covaxin.
Now, new results published in the Lancet journal reveal that Covaxin has attained a 77.8% efficacy rate in preventing “symptomatic” COVID-19, and was obtained from a Phase 3 clinical trial for the potential new vaccine that began last year. The Phase 3 trial involved some 24,419 randomly-selected participants, and were administered twice, four weeks apart, with either Covaxin or a placebo shot.
Results show that Covaxin also achieved a 63.6% efficacy against asymptomatic COVID-19, and a 93.4% efficacy rate versus “severe” COVID-19. The vaccine also showed no serious adverse effects to its recipients, with only occasional mild side-effects reported. Additionally, preliminary data from other studies show Covaxin to be at least 65% effective in mitigating symptoms from the B.1.617.2 variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, better known as the Delta variant.
Also, unlike the rest of its mRNA-vaccine peers, Covaxin can be safely stored in standard refrigerators, since it only necessitates temperatures of 2-4 °C (36-46 °F).
Covaxin also marks one of the few globally-administered COVID-19 vaccines to make use of one of the oldest vaccination technologies, as it is an inactivated whole virus vaccine, where chemicals called adjuvants are combined with inactivated viral particles to stimulate an immune response in recipients. Similar technology was implemented in developing the first polio and influenza vaccines nearly a century ago. Its fellow “inactivated virus” peers include China’s CoronaVac (Sinovac) and Russia’s CoviVac.
Read further on our Modern Sciences coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic:
- New Study Reveals How the Delta Variant Swept Through the World
- How Does the SARS-CoV-2 Virus Enter Your Cells?
- Merck’s “Molnupiravir” COVID-19 Pill Passes Human Trials
- New Study Shows the “Doubled” Death Risk of the Delta Variant
- The Longest-Ever COVID-19 Case Lasted 335 Days
- COVID-19 Affects More of the Brain than Expected, New Study Finds
References
- Ella, R., Reddy, S., Blackwelder, W., Potdar, V., Yadav, P., Sarangi, V., Aileni, V. K., Kanungo, S., Rai, S., Reddy, P., Verma, S., Singh, C., Redkar, S., Mohapatra, S., Pandey, A., Ranganadin, P., Gumashta, R., Multani, M., Mohammad, S., … Vadrevu, K. M. (2021). Efficacy, safety, and lot-to-lot immunogenicity of an inactivated SARS-CoV-2 vaccine (Bbv152): Interim results of a randomised, double-blind, controlled, phase 3 trial. The Lancet, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02000-6
- Haridy, R. (2021, November 15). India’s Covaxin COVID-19 vaccine 77.8% effective, Lancet study finds. New Atlas. https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/india-covaxin-coronavirus-vaccine-effective-study-trial-results/
- Kay, C. (2021, November 12). India’s Covaxin Found 77.8% Effective in Lancet Covid Study. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-11/india-s-covaxin-77-8-effective-against-covid-in-lancet-study
