Since the start of the coronavirus epidemic, many countries have been working to design a vaccine against Covid-19. This is the case in Germany, via its CureVac laboratory, which has developed a vaccine candidate. The results on its effectiveness have just been announced in a press release.

The German vaccine CureVac was to be the next to receive a European marketing authorization. The pharmaceutical company was indeed planning to submit a request for the month of June. A little earlier, the German authorities had already announced a delay and opted to take this step in August. However, it will be difficult to make such a request, since the CureVac vaccine would only be 47% effective. Its design began at the same time as the serums developed by Pfizer and Moderna. It is a blow for the laboratory, which had made an agreement with Europe to deliver 405 million doses of vaccine against the coronavirus. The European Union had therefore placed a lot of hope in this vaccine in order to be able to immunize more people. For now, the French population must be content with one of the four vaccines already authorized by the drug agency, namely Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Janssen, Johnson & Johnson. According to the Directorate General of Health, nearly 11 million French people have received the two doses of vaccine, which represents a little more than 16% of the population. In addition, over 25 million initial doses have been administered.

It was after a clinical trial of 40 participants in America and Europe that the vaccine’s effectiveness was tested. The results of course disappointed CureVac CEO Franz-Werner Haas and his team, who had “ hoped for more solid results “. This low efficacy rate is explained by the appearance of variants, which are more resistant to the vaccine: ” we have found that it is difficult to achieve high efficiency with this unprecedented range of variants “. However, all hope is not lost, as he explains that “ the final efficiency could still change “. The test is continuing and a final analysis will be returned. As a reminder, the CureVac vaccine is based on messenger RNA technology, such as Pfizer’s Comirnaty vaccine or the anti-Covid Moderna serum.