BEIJING: Chinese people are about to embrace a new COVID-19 vaccine, which experts predicted could be the most effective, developed in China.
The latest research showed 79 percent efficacy against the dominant Delta variant and overall 67 percent efficacy against any variants.
The vaccine, a protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by Chengdu-based Clover Biopharmaceuticals, is also the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine that has been proven effective against all three mutations (Delta, Gamma and Mu), Zhuang Shilihe, a Guangzhou-based vaccine expert, told the Global Times.
Clover announced on its website that it had achieved the primary efficacy endpoint and secondary efficacy endpoints in SPECTRA, a global pivotal phase II-III clinical trial.The results showed that the candidate, SCB-2019, demonstrated 79 percent overall efficacy against COVID-19 of any severity caused by the globally dominant Delta variant, which currently comprises more than 90 percent of all cases worldwide.
Efficacy was 92 percent against the Gamma variant and 59 percent against the Mu variant, and collectively these three strains (Delta, Gamma and Mu) comprised 73 percent of all strains identified in the study, according to an announcement the company released on its website.
Overall efficacy was 67 percent against COVID-19 of any severity caused by any strain in the study, successfully meeting the primary endpoint of the trial. Clover’s vaccine candidate is one of the first to demonstrate significant efficacy against Delta in a double-blind, randomized clinical trial, read the announcement.
The overall efficacy is not bad, given the severity of the variants used in the clinical trial, Zhuang said. “We can say that the Clover candidate faces the most severe phase III environment than any previous one did, such as Pfizer, Oxford and Sinovac candidates,” he noted. – Agencies
