Pas­sive vac­ci­na­tion? As­traZeneca spot­lights six-month pro­tec­tion with Covid-19 an­ti­body among vul­ner­a­ble group

New fol­low-up da­ta sug­gest that As­traZeneca’s long-act­ing an­ti­body can pro­tect high-risk pop­u­la­tions from con­tract­ing Covid-19 for as long as six months, beef­ing up the case for it as a form of “pas­sive im­mu­niza­tion” or “pas­sive vac­ci­na­tion.”

At a six-month cut­off for the Phase III PROVENT tri­al, in­ves­ti­ga­tors tracked an 83% re­duc­tion in risk of symp­to­matic Covid-19 af­ter one dose of the an­ti­body among 4,991 vol­un­teers. The com­pa­ny did not spell out case counts on ei­ther arm, not­ing on­ly that there were no se­vere dis­ease or Covid-re­lat­ed deaths in the AZD7442 arm and two ad­di­tion­al cas­es of se­vere Covid-19 in the place­bo arm (for a to­tal of five se­vere cas­es and two re­lat­ed deaths).

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