And the TGA finds no risk to elderly people from the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine after investigating Norwegian deaths.
Welcome to The Medical Republic’s COVID Catch-Up.
It’s the day’s COVID-19 news in one convenient post. Email bianca@biancanogrady.com with any tips, comments or feedback.
3 February
- Interim analysis of Sputnik V vaccine study suggests high level of protection against COVID-19.
- TGA concludes no evidence of risk to elderly from Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
- Latest confirmed COVID-19 infection numbers from around Australia.
Interim analysis of data from the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine suggests greater than 90% efficacy in preventing COVID-19.
A paper published in the Lancet presents the interim results from a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial involving 16,501 individuals given at least one dose of two-dose vaccine – 21 days between first and second dose – and 5476 given a placebo injection.
At 21 days after receiving the first dose of the vaccine, the PCR-confirmed infection rate was 91.6% lower in the vaccinated group than in the placebo group. The study also recorded no cases of moderate or severe COVID-19 in the vaccine group, compared to 20 cases in the placebo group.
The analysis excluded 97 cases of COVID-19 – 63 in the vaccine group and 34 in the placebo group – that occurred before the second dose was given. If those cases were included, the vaccine efficacy was just over 73%.
Most of the reported adverse events were mild, such as flu-like illness, injection site reactions, headache, and asthenia. The more serious adverse events – which affected around 0.3% of the vaccine group and 0.4% of the placebo group – were judged to not be related to the vaccination.
The authors stressed that the median follow-up time from first dose was only 48 days, so they were not able to assess how long the vaccine-induced protection might last.
The TGA has concluded there are no specific concerns relating to the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in the elderly, after investigating whether there was a causal link between vaccinations and the deaths of 30 elderly recipients in Norway.
The deaths occurred in very elderly and frail individuals, who were among more than 40,000 older citizens vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2.
According to the TGA, the European Medicines Agency found there was no specific safety concerns associated with the vaccine, and it could not establish that the vaccination caused the deaths.
It’s the third day of West Australia’s COVID-19 lockdown and so far no new cases have been reported despite the testing of more than 200 close and casual contacts of the infected quarantine security guard. Testing continues as contact tracers are following up with more venues that the guard may have visited.
Meanwhile, the number of new infections reported globally in the past week is down 13% from the previous week, which is a faint and much-needed glimmer of good news.
Here are the latest confirmed COVID-19 infection numbers from around Australia to 9pm Tuesday:
National – 28,824 with 909 deaths
ACT – 118 (0)
NSW – 5112 (2)
NT – 98 (0)
QLD – 1311 (1)
SA – 597 (1)
TAS – 234 (0)
VIC – 20,450 (1)
WA – 904 (1)
