Oxford University on Thursday said that its COVID-19 vaccine candidate has a better immune response a two full-dose regime is used rather than a full-dose followed by a half-dose booster, Reuters reported.
According to the Reuters reports, Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, which has been licensed to AstraZeneca, has published interim late-stage trial results showing higher efficacy when a half dose is followed by a full dose, compared to a two full-dose regime, though more work needs to be done to affirm the result.
On Thursday, the details from the Phase I/II clinical trials were released, which made no reference to the half-dose/full-dose regime, that Oxford has said had been "unplanned" but approved by regulators.
The Oxford University said that the booster doses of the vaccine "are both shown to induce stronger antibody responses than a single dose, the standard dose/standard dose inducing the best response."
Last month, researchers from the University of Oxford and pharmaceutical major AstraZeneca presented crucial Phase 3 interim results which showed that it is “effective” at preventing COVID-19 and offers a high level of protection from the deadly virus.
The researchers released Phase 3 interim results in which they said that the ChAdOx1 nCoV-2019, being produced in collaboration with AstraZeneca, was found to be 70.4 per cent effective when combining data from two dosing regimens.
“These findings show that we have an effective vaccine that will save many lives. Excitingly, we''ve found that one of our dosing regimens may be around 90 per cent effective and if this dosing regimen is used, more people could be vaccinated with planned vaccine supply,” explained Professor Andrew Pollard, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and Chief Investigator of the Oxford Vaccine Trial.
