According to The World Health Organisation’s top scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the multilateral organisation requires more data to support the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, as per media reports.
This comes as Oxford and AstraZeneca announced last week that their vaccine appeared 62 per cent effective in people who received two doses and 90 per cent effective when volunteers were given a half dose followed by a full dose.
Later, they stated that they faced a manufacturing issue had led to a half dose wrongly administered as the first dose to some participants.
Briefing the press on Friday, Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s chief scientist, said: “The numbers are too small to really come to any definitive conclusions. It’s hard to compare these two groups.”
She added that the WHO had come to know that AstraZeneca would like to conduct a full study testing the half dose followed by a full-dose regimen. She noted that the other ongoing research evaluating the vaccine uses two full doses.