The COVID-19 vaccine developed by the US pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer, in a collaboration with Germany’s BioNTech was found to be 95% effective in the largest and real-world study undertaken, reported AFP. The study was undertaken in Israel that had fully vaccinated 70% of its population by the start of April. The authors of the research included those from the country’s national vaccination campaign and it was published in The Lancet medical journal.

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What did the study found?

The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID jab showed 95% efficacy if a person was fully vaccinated. That efficiency came down when a person received just a single dose of the two-dose vaccine.

It found that two doses conveyed 95.3% protection against infection and 96.7% protection against death seven days after the second dose.

After 14 days, that protection increased to 96.5% and 98%, respectively.

But the protection was considerably lower when people received just a single vaccine dose.

Between seven and 14 days after the first dose, protection against infection was found to be 57.7%, and protection against death 77%.

The authors said that one dose may provide a shorter window of protection, especially in an environment where new viral variants emerge.

The vaccine was found effective in protecting even elderly individuals at a time when the more infectious English variant was dominant. 

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During the analysis period, there were 232,268 confirmed Covid-19 infections, and nearly 95 percent of samples tested were found to be the English B117 variant. There were 4,481 severe infections and 1,113 deaths.

The team, however, couldn’t study  the effect of the South African variant that was also identified in the middle-eastern nation.

What did the researchers say?

Jonathan Ball, professor of Molecular Virology at the University of Nottingham, who was not involved in the research said that the study showed that two doses of the vaccine significantly increased levels of immunity and protection.

“This is why it is important that people get both doses,” he noted.

Writing in a comment article, Eyal Lesham of the Chaim Sheba Medical Centre and Annelies Wilder-Smith of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the study findings “suggest that high vaccine coverage rates could offer a way out of the pandemic”.

“Regrettably, rapid population-level coverage cannot be easily replicated in many other countries,” said the pair, who were not involved in the Lancet study.

“The global use of (Pfizer/BioNTech) vaccine is limited by supply issues, high costs, and ultra-cold chain storage requirements.”

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Which countries have approved Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine?

This COVID-19 vaccine is approved in over 80 countries, which include the US, UK, Turkey, South Africa, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Canada, among others.