Novavax confirms vaccine is 100% protective against severe COVID-19

An elderly woman receives a vaccine dose

Final analysis of NIHR-supported UK Phase 3 trials of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, has confirmed that it provides 100% protection against severe COVID-19 disease, preventing hospitalisation and death.

Protection against different variants

Results from the trial, held at the NIHR King's Wellcome Clinical Research Facility (CRF)  along with 34 other UK sites, also revealed that the vaccine provided 89.7% protection against mild to moderate disease – regardless of whether this was caused by the original UK Sars-Cov-2 variant or the widespread ‘Kent’ variant which emerged in December 2020.


Furthermore, Phase 2b trials in South Africa, where a different variant is dominant, confirmed that the vaccine also provided 100% protection against severe COVID-19 disease, along with 55.4% protection against mild to moderate COVID-19 in HIV-negative people.

A collaborative effort

Given Urgent Public Health Status by the Chief Medical Officer in August last year and recruiting over 15,000 volunteers in just two months, Novavax’s clinical trial of its protein-based COVID-19 vaccine is the largest of its kind to be carried out in the UK. Following an outstanding collaborative effort, the NIHR Clinical Research Network South London, the UK Vaccines Taskforce and the NHS’ Vaccine Research Registry, which has over 450,000 recruits so far, were instrumental to the rapid and efficient enrolment of volunteers to the trial


At King’s College Hospital, the Novavax study team based at the King’s CRF recruited and dosed 228 volunteers. To ensure that trial participant reflected the general population, over a quarter of recruits were aged 65 or over and a large proportion also had underlying health conditions. All volunteers are now completing regular follow-up visits at the Facility and just last month, a participant was interviewed about his experiences on the trial.


Dr James Galloway, site study lead and Consultant Rheumatologist said:

“The news is excellent. The team here have put in so much work to deliver this study, it is fantastic to see the efforts have paid off.”


Read the full press release: 'Novavax Confirms High Levels of Efficacy Against Original and Variant COVID-19 Strains in United Kingdom and South Africa Trials'


Tags: NIHR Wellcome King's Clinical Research Facility - Covid-19 -

By NIHR Wellcome King's Clinical Research Facility at 16 Mar 2021, 12:26 PM


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