A HEALTH academic has called the development of two Covid-19 vaccines in England “triumphs of UK bioscience.”

Dr John Campbell, a former A&E volunteer and nurse lecturer has celebrated news of another Covid-19 vaccine.

It was revealed this week that the Novavax Covid-19 Vaccine demonstrates 89.3 per cent efficacy in phase three clinical trials.

The jab is the first vaccine to show clinical efficacy against Covid-19 and both variants from the UK and South Africa.

Dr Campbell said: “The Oxford AstraZeneca and this Novavax, they’re both developed by UK academia. These are both triumphs of UK bioscience. This Novavax one has had a lot of UK academic institutes co-operating.”

Although the Novavax jab has a slight difference in efficacy between the two variants, Dr Campbell said: “What I care about is - does it stop you getting sick? As far as I know it does. The main important fact is how many people it keeps out of hospital.”

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said: “Having taken part in Novavax’s vaccine trial myself, I am particularly thrilled to see such positive results.

“I want to thank the thousands of trial volunteers, without whom these results would not have been possible.”

“It will now be for the regulator to do its crucial work in assessing the efficacy and safety of this vaccine, but if approved it will be a further boost to our vaccination programme.”

The UK Government secured 40 million doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, 100 million of Oxford/Astra Zeneca, 17 million of Moderna and now 60 million of the unapproved Novavax.

Dr Campbell said: "We've booked way more vaccines than we're going to need for the population.

"From a medical point of view it's good because what they've found is different vaccines have different efficacies and side effects in different groups."

He said that in time, NHS staff will know which vaccine will best protect each group and administer accordingly.