AstraZeneca vaccine protects against severe Covid-19 from SA variant, ShoreCap says

(Sharecast News) - The novel coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford is likely effective in preventing severe cases of Covid-19, or those requiring hospitalisation, analysts at Shore Capital said.

The day before, the South African government had halted the rollout of the vaccine, known as AZD 1222, on the back a study showing that it offered only "minimal" protection against mild-to-moderate cases of Covid-19.

In a research note sent to clients, Dr. Adam Barker and Dr. Tara Raveendran explained that the small sixe of the study, with just 2,000 volunteers, made the results "very difficult to interpret" and that conclusion "arguably quite meaningless at this stage".

Furthermore, they said that "there is no information on the vaccine's efficacy against severe disease or hospitalisation" not least because of the young age of most participants, with the average volunteer 31 years old.

Thus far in the pandemic, severe cases of Covid-19 had tended to be concentrated in people aged 45 and over.

Hence, pending the collection of more data and further studies, their running assumption remained that AZD1222 did prevent severe illness caused by the new virus strain now prevalent in South Africa, 501Y.V2.

As they noted, a rival vaccine developed by Johnson&Johnson, which also used a so-called adenovirus vector, had demonstrated its efficacy in preventing hospitalisations and severe illnesses in a clinical study conducted in the same country.

"South Africa's decision to suspend the rollout is understandable given it's important to check that a medical intervention is offering a benefit, given all interventions can potentially cause harm," they said.

"In addition, interventions should be targeted where they're most effective and so it's important to understand who benefits most from vaccination (given limited resources).

"However, the approach also comes with risk, given if AZD1222 does prevent severe illness (which, as we say, we believe would be the base case) then some people who could be protected in the short-term, will now have to wait to acquire such protection."