AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine was 74 percent effective at preventing symptomatic disease in its phase 3 U.S. clinical trial, according to a study released Sept. 29 in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Five things to know:
- The trial included more than 32,000 people in the U.S., as well as Chile and Peru. Of those, 21,635 received the vaccine and 10,816 got a placebo.
- There were no severe or critical symptomatic cases of COVID-19 in the group that received the vaccine. There were eight severe cases in those who got a placebo.
- The vaccine was 83.5 percent effective in people ages 65 and older.
- There were no cases of blood clots in the clinical trial. A rare blood-clotting condition called vaccine-induced immune thrombocytopenia and thrombosis has been seen in rare cases in those who received AstraZeneca's vaccine.
- AstraZeneca's vaccine is authorized for use in more than 170 countries, but not in the U.S. In July, the drugmaker said it plans to seek full approval from the FDA for the vaccine rather than an emergency use authorization, which requires at least six months of data.
"It's a good vaccine, and we just want to make sure it's ready to be used if needed," AstraZeneca's CEO Pascal Soriot said at the time.
Find the full study results here.