Novavax's Vaccine Works Well -- Except on Variant First Found in South Africa

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

Novavax, a little-known company supported by the U.S. federal government’s Operation Warp Speed, said for the first time on Thursday that its Covid-19 vaccine offered robust protection against the virus. But it also found that the vaccine is not as effective against the fast-spreading variant first discovered in South Africa, another setback in the global race to end a pandemic that has already killed more than 2.1 million people.

The news was problematic for the United States, which hours earlier reported its first known cases of the contagious variant in two unrelated people in South Carolina. And it came just days after Moderna and Pfizer said that their vaccines were also less effective against the same variant.

Novavax, which makes one of six vaccine candidates supported by Operation Warp Speed last summer, has been running trials in Britain, South Africa, the United States and Mexico. It said Thursday that an early analysis of its 15,000-person trial in Britain revealed that the two-dose vaccine had an efficacy rate of nearly 90 percent there. But in a small trial in South Africa, the efficacy rate dropped to just under 50 percent. Almost all the cases that scientists have analyzed there so far were caused by the variant, known as B.1.351. The data also showed that many trial participants were infected with the variant even after they had already had Covid.

“We have the first trial — we are the first to conduct an efficacy trial — in the face of a changing virus,” said Stanley Erck, the president and chief executive of Novavax. He said that researchers expected the variants could change the trial results, but “the amount of change has been a bit of a surprise to everyone.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/health/covid-vaccine-novavax-south-africa.html

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This one doesn't have an EUA yet in the U.S.

[rzemanfl]

1. Why do I have this "we're fucked" feeling? n/t

[EndlessWire]

2. Because we're fucked? n/t

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Although this lethal virus is not "the common cold"

trying to vaccinate against it is similar to trying to do just that - "protect from getting 'the common cold'". This thing is not like measles or polio or tetanus, where a shot (with a booster) maybe every 10 years or so gets you protected. This is a fast-moving, ever-changing target, which makes it a little closer to how the flu (Influenza A/B) evolves every year except this is mutating as much or more, and as we all know, has been found to obviously be more deadly, and can cause long-lasting detrimental effects to many who contract larger loads of it but survive.

I am hoping that since so many countries and their researchers are giving it such a massive amount of attention, including looking at the mechanisms of it, we might see some long-term benefits that will help with handling similar viruses in the future, including coming up with better therapeutics that could be applicable to it and any similar viruses (including the "common cold" ).

[groundloop]

4. This story contradicts what I've read elsewhere about the Pfizer vaccine

Other news stories are saying that the Pfizer vaccine is SLIGHTLY less effective against the UK and South African strains.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-works-against-mutations-found-in-u-k-south-africa-variants-lab-study-finds-11611802559

[LisaL]

5. How exactly does this story contradict the story about Pfizer vaccine?

This story is talking about a different vaccine, not Pfizer. Pfizer study that you link is also something done in a lab, not testing of the vaccine in the real world.

[Thekaspervote]

9. In the OP second paragraph "this comes on the heels of Pfizer and Moderna saying their vaccines

Are less effective against the variants.”

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Trust me

I had to look it up because I had not heard the name before and assumed maybe it was a brand name for Pfizer's but nope, it's the name of a company!

https://www.novavax.com/

And as a sidenote - Pfizer's vaccine was never part of "Operation Warp Speed", which is part of why we have had such a hassle with them during the previous administration.

[progree]

6. It didn't mention Brazil's variant (which emerged in early December and took over Manaus in a month

Why scientists are very worried about the variant from Brazil, NPR, 1/27/21

... for some scientists, the most worrying variant [of all the variants that have emerged around the world in the last several months] might be the newest one. A variant called P.1, which emerged in early December in Manaus, Brazil, and by mid-January had already caused a massive resurgence in cases across the city of 2 million people.

On Monday, officials detected the first confirmed case of P.1 in the U.S., specifically in Minnesota.

"If you were to ask me right now, what's most concerning of all the things that I've heard so far, it's the fact that they are reporting a sudden increase in cases in Manaus, Brazil," virologist Jeremy Luban, at the University of Massachusetts, told NPR two weeks ago, before the variant arrived in the U.S. "Manaus already had 75 percent of people infected [in the spring of last year]."

... While the variant from the U.K. took about three months to dominate the outbreak in England, P.1 took only about a month to dominate the outbreak in Manaus. In addition, Manaus had already been hit extremely hard by the virus back in April. One study estimated that the population should have reached herd immunity and the virus shouldn't be able to spread easily in the community. So why would the city see an even bigger surge 10 months later?

(and then details about the variant and particularly several mutations on the surface that make it more effective. Very concerning details -Progree)

"We've been here before with the flu. We're having to live with influenza and figure out a way of staying ahead of the virus by making vaccines on a yearly basis," says Gupta, at the University of Cambridge.

"So I can imagine that we'll be doing something similar with coronavirus. Eventually we'll need to design different vaccines that are targeting different parts of the virus — ones that the virus finds harder to change."

MORE: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/01/27/npr-why-scientists-are-very-worried-about-the-variant-from-brazil

Manaus is also the city that's been in the news for running out of oxygen supplies.

[StevieM]

8. I have read that the Brazil and South Africa variants are very similar.

Apparently they have some of the same characteristics.

I actually had just come across this article before I saw your post. It is very concerning.

Ironically, I was just thinking the other day that the Novavax vaccine might be something I would like to get down the line. It occurs to me that the best way of ending the pandemic may be if we can take two or more different vaccines which work on different principles. Maybe that can get the efficacy rate up from 95 percent to 99 percent or higher.

[riversedge]

10. all 3 vaccines all appeared to show lowered effectiveness against the S. Africa variant.............

I would still take it if it were the only one available. Just me.


Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/health/covid-vaccine-novavax-south-africa.html


................
............John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine who was not involved in the studies, praised the results. “Fifty percent is not as good as 100, but it’s a damn sight better than zero,” he said, noting that given the strong results in Britain, it was likely very similar in efficacy to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

While the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines rely on a newer mRNA technology that has not been used in previous vaccines, Novavax’s candidate employs an older, more established method that relies on injecting coronavirus proteins to provoke an immune response.


The fact that three vaccines all appeared to show lowered effectiveness against the variant from South Africa is not encouraging, and the results Novavax announced Thursday were the first to occur outside of a laboratory, testing how well a vaccine worked in people infected with a new variant. Johnson & Johnson is also on the cusp of announcing results of its Covid-19 vaccine trials, and has also tested its candidate in South Africa.

The announcement from Novavax raises the stakes for Johnson & Johnson. The company was expected to announce its results as early as last weekend, and the delay has triggered speculation among scientists that the firm has also discovered that its vaccine worked less well in South African trial volunteers who were infected with the variant. In an earnings call on Tuesday, Alex Gorsky, the chief executive officer of the company, said they were looking forward to sharing results from their late-stage trial by early next week.