At the center of criticism at European level, after numerous authorizations and stops concerning doubts about its safety, the vaccine produced by AstraZeneca reveals an effectiveness of 80% against the coronavirus according to its manufacturer, which carried out trials in the United States.
After the recent blockage it experienced in many European countries concerned about a high risk of blood clots, the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, has received the approval of the Organization World Health Organization (WHO) as well as the European Medicines Agency (EMA), allowing it to regain the confidence of governments.
Despite everything, doubts about its effectiveness as well as its possible side effects are still a problem and leave a lack of confidence in this vaccine considered less effective than its American competitors Pfizer and Moderna.
On Monday, anxious to dispel doubts, the laboratory announced that its vaccine was 80% effective against the coronavirus in the elderly and that it did not increase the risk of blood clots, based on clinical trials of phase III carried out in the United States.
On the rest of the population, the vaccine is 79% effective in preventing symptomatic coronavirus and reduces severe forms of infection and hospitalization to 100%, according to the laboratory.
According to the press release from the laboratory announcing the results of clinical trials conducted in the United States on 32,449 participants in phase III, at least 20% of them were over 65 years of age and 60% had health problems associated with higher risks of developing a severe form of Covid, such as diabetes, obesity or heart problems.
And out of all those vaccinated, who received at least one injection of the vaccine, scientists did not find an increased risk of thrombosis, a blood clot that forms in the veins.
With these results, AstraZeneca / Oxford hopes to convince the still recalcitrant countries who had worried about the lack of data proving the safety of the vaccine for the elderly.
Due to recent events related to the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine, the confidence of European populations in this vaccine has also fallen, according to an opinion research conducted by YouGov.
These last two weeks, the populations of several European countries, like Germany, France, Spain, Italy estimate that the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine is “more dangerous”.
“Not only have we seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who consider it unsafe over the past two weeks in Europe, but the AstraZeneca vaccine continues to be viewed as significantly less safe than those from Pfizer and Moderna,” said, Matt Smith, data journalist at YouGov in a statement.
