Germany's CureVac Vaccine Only 47% Effective; Australia Limits AstraZen Vac To Over 60s, Blood Clots

- CureVac has suffered a setback in its efforts to produce an effective vaccine.
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- DW, German News, June 17, 2021.

- 'Germany's CureVac Vaccine Only 47% Effective'

The German pharma company cited "the unprecedented context of at least 13 variants" in explaining why its vaccine fell short of expectations in an interim analysis. A coronavirus vaccine produced by Germany's CureVac is just 47% effective, the pharmaceutical firm said Wednesday. After an interim analysis of the vaccine, the Tübingen-based company released a statement saying:

"CVnCoV demonstrated an interim vaccine efficacy of 47% against COVID-19 disease of any severity and did not meet prespecified statistical success criteria."

Variants of concern: The company cited the "unprecedented context of at least 13 variants circulating within the study population subset assessed" for the disappointing result, as well as varying responses across different age groups.
The disappointing efficacy of the vaccine emerged from a study based on 134 COVID-19 cases among 40,000 volunteers across Europe and Latin America.

Like the shots developed by faster competitors BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna, CureVac's version is based on novel mRNA technology. But the BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have proved to be more than 90% effective in preventing illness.
- The World Health Organization has said vaccines with an efficacy above 50% are worth using. -
CureVac CEO Franz-Werner Haas said that as the interim results showed there was only one case of COVID-19 attributed to the original variant, the trial "underlines the importance of developing next-generation vaccines as new virus variants continue to emerge."...

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germanys-curevac-vaccine-only-47-effective/a-57929473
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- 'Australia Limits AstraZeneca Vaccine To Over 60s,' DW, June 17, 2021.

Two people in the country have now died of rare blood clots after receiving the shot. The Australian government has called the move a fresh "challenge" to the slow vaccine rollout there.

Australia raised the recommended age for receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine to 60 on Thursday. It comes after a 52-year-old woman died of rare blood clots in her brain after receiving the shot. That was the 2nd death in the country connected to the AstraZeneca vaccine; a 48-year-old woman died in April of similar problems. At that time, the government recommended that the vaccine only be given to people over the age of 50.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said the government "places safety above all else," and described the decision as conservative and reflective of the low risk of catching COVID-19 in Australia. What is the state of Australia's vaccine rollout? Hunt described the new rules around who can receive the AstraZeneca vaccine as a fresh "challenge" to Australia's stalled vaccine program.

Only 3% of the country's 25 million people have been fully inoculated against the virus. Everyone under 60 in Australia is now urged to get the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, the only other vaccine approved for use, instead. The government anticipates approving the US-made Moderna vaccine soon...

https://www.dw.com/en/covid-australia-limits-astrazeneca-vaccine-to-over-60s/a-57931604