News | COVID-19 Vaccine Trial in Northern Ireland finds vaccine to be highly effective | The Wellcome Trust-Wolfson Northern Ireland Clinical Research Facility qub.ac.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from qub.ac.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
STAFF from the Western Health and Social Trust (Western Trust) joined volunteers from across Northern Ireland (NI) to take part in a milestone study into the new Novavax Covid-19 vaccine. Three members of the Western Trust Research Team – research nurses Dawn Small, Caitriona Lavery and Donal Concannon – all played an important role within the project. The study was a large UK-wide research initiative which aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Novavax vaccine against Covid-19, involving more than 15,000 participants. After successful trials, the interim study results reported on January 28 showed that the vaccine had an efficacy rate of 89.3 percent against the acquisition of Covid-19 and the development of severe Covid-19 infections.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)-supported Novavax Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial has achieved its recruitment target of 15,203 volunteers just two months after opening in the UK – including 482 participants from Northern Ireland.
This is the first COVID-19 vaccine trial to take place in Northern Ireland and the number recruited surpassed the original target of 350.
Recruitment closed on Friday 27 November at its Belfast site, where staff have been working round the clock to reach the target.
The Novavax study is the largest double-blind, placebo-controlled COVID-19 vaccine trial to be undertaken in the UK so far.
The Belfast site is one of a number across the UK to host the trial, which is investigating the safety, efficacy and immunogenicity of NVX-CoV2373 – a stable, prefusion protein antigen derived from the genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus spike (S) protein and adjuvanted with Novavax’s proprietary Matrix M™.