(Reuters) – AstraZeneca said on Thursday its COVID-19 vaccine was 76% effective at preventing symptomatic illness and completely stopped severe or critical forms of the disease, citing a new analysis of up-to-date results for its major U.S. trial.
U.S. health officials earlier in the week publicly rebuked the drugmaker for using “outdated information” when calculating that the vaccine was 79% effective.
That marked a new setback for the vaccine that was once hailed as a milestone in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, but has been dogged by questions over its effectiveness and possible side-effects.
Confidence in the vaccine took a further hit this month when more than a dozen countries, mostly in Europe, temporarily suspended the shot after reports linked it to a rare blood clotting disorder in a very small number of people.
AstraZeneca had also said on Monday an interim analysis of data showed that the shot, developed with Oxford University, was 100% effective against severe or critical forms of the disease.
(Reporting by Shubham Kalia and Peter Henderson;, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
