AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine provided strong protection against disease and complete protection against hospitalization and death across all age groups in a late-stage U.S. study, the company announced Monday.
The U.S. study found the shot was 79% effective in preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19 and 100% effective in stopping severe disease and hospitalization.
The early findings from the U.S. study, announced Monday, are just one set of information AstraZeneca must submit to the Food and Drug Administration.
While the AstraZeneca vaccine has been authorized in more than 50 countries worldwide, it has not yet been approved in the U.S.
The study results released Monday also noted that researchers did not identify any safety concerns linked to the vaccine. That includes any evidence of rare blood clotting, concerns of which caused several European countries to briefly stop issuing doses of the vaccine last week.
The EU's top medical agency has since said that the AstraZeneca vaccine was not the cause of that clotting issue, which has only occurred in a handful of patients out of the more than 17 million of which have received a dose.
