German laboratory CureVac announced that its experimental Covid-19 vaccine showed only 47% effectiveness. According to the analysis of a large-scale clinical study, specifies the laboratory that signed an important order contract with the European Union for this messenger RNA vaccine, the vaccine “has reached a preliminary efficacy of 47% against Covid-19, regardless of its severity, not meeting the established statistical criteria for success “.
“The final effectiveness could still change,” adds the laboratory’s CEO Franz-Werner Haas, quoted in the statement. “We had hoped for more robust results in the analysis, but found that it is difficult to achieve high efficacy with this unprecedented range of variants. We are continuing the study until the final analysis »he adds.
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The preliminary test was conducted on 40,000 volunteers in Europe and Latin America, with 134 cases of Covid-19 found in this sample and 13 variants of the virus. The vaccine, the company said, has proved effective among young people but not among the over-60s, the population most at risk of contracting severe forms of the disease.
405 million doses pre-optioned by the EU
The poor results cast doubts on its use by the countries of the European Union. Europe already had a pre-option to purchase 405 million doses of the German vaccine, with a further 20 million doses destined for Germany alone.
CureVac started vaccine development in January 2020, at the same time as BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna laboratories which were the first to get the green light from various regulatory authorities to market their product, also based on innovative RNA technology messenger.