Covaxin has an overall 77.8 percent effectiveness against symptomatic COVID-19 infections according to a statement by the vaccine's producer, Bharat Biotech.
The final safety and efficacy analysis data for the phase 3 clinical trials of the vaccine was announced by Bharat Biotech On 3 July in a preprint paper.
Covaxin is the country's first home-grown Covid-19 vaccine to be granted emergency use authorisation.
It is to be noted that these study results are in preprint, which means they are yet to be peer reviewed.
FIT breaks down 10 things to know about Covaxin's much awaited phase 3 trial data.
10 Things to Know About the Final Phase 3 Trial Data
The phase 3 trial was a double-blind placebo test, which means neither the researchers, not the participants knew beforehand who was receiving the placebo and who got the vaccine.
The study was conducted on 24,419 participants between the ages of 18 and 98, who were divided into to groups (2 doses of vaccine recipients and placebo recipients)
The vaccine is 93.4 percent effective in preventing severe illness.
The vaccine was also found to be 63.6 percent effective against asymptomatic infections.
The trial result also says it is 65.2 percent affective against the Delta variant.
A total of 130 participants of had symptomatic COVID. In the vaccine group, 24 participants experienced symptomatic illness, and only 1 vaccine experienced severe COVID-19 symptoms.
12 percent of participants in the vaccine arm experienced common post-vaccine side effects.
Less than 0.5 percent of the participants experienced adverse side effects after vaccination. No cases of anaphylaxis or deaths were reported.
Preliminary phase 3 trial results of the vaccine claimed Covaxin had an efficacy of 81 percent which dropped to 78 percent in a second interim trial result.
The study was jointly funded by Indian Pharmaceutical company, Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).
About Covaxin COVID-19 Vaccine
Covaxin is a whole inactivate virus type vaccine. This means that the vaccine uses weakened or killed pathogens to trigger an immune response by the body against the real thing.
The vaccine can be stored in regular refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8oC.
Bharat Biotech has also announced that it aims to scale of production of the vaccine to manufacture 1 billion doses of the COVID vaccine by the end of 2021.
Two separate studies conducted by the US National Institute of Health (NIH) and ICMR have also pointed to Covaxin being effective against COVID-19 variants of concern including the Alpha (B.1.1.7), Beta (B.1.351) and Delta (B.1.617) variants.
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