Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin demonstrates 77.8% efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19, says Lancet

The Lancet peer-review has confirmed that Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine, Covaxin, is 77.8 per cent efficient against symptomatic patients, the Hyderabad-based company said on Friday.

“Covaxin is the only COVID-19 vaccine to have demonstrated efficacy data from phase III clinical trials against the delta variant at 65.2 per cent,” the official statement issued by Bharat Biotech said citing the study by the Lancet.

“Efficacy analysis demonstrates Covaxin to be 77.8 per cent effective against symptomatic COVID-19, through evaluation of 130 confirmed cases, with 24 observed in the vaccine group versus 106 in the placebo group,” it added.

Covaxin has further demonstrated that it will be 93.4 per cent effective against severe symptomatic COVID-19 patients.

“Safety analysis demonstrates adverse events reported were similar to placebo, with 12 per cent of subjects experiencing commonly known side effects and less than 0.5 per cent of subjects experiencing serious adverse events,” it said.

“Efficacy data demonstrates 63.6 per cent protection against asymptomatic COVID-19, 65.2 per cent protection against the SARS-CoV-2, B.1.617.2 Delta and 70.8 per cent protection against all variants of SARS-CoV-2 virus,” the Bharat Biotech added.

Following months of speculation, the World Health Organization (WHO) earlier this month granted Emergency Use Listing (EUL) to India’s Covaxin. 

The WHO had been meeting crucially to discuss the emergency listing of the vaccine.

In a tweet, Bharat Biotech had said, “The CDSCO has approved the extension of shelf life of Covaxin up to 12 months, from the date of manufacture. This approval of shelf life extension is based on the availability of additional stability data, which was submitted to CDSCO.”