New Delhi (NVI): The Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine proved 94 per cent effective in a huge real world study that involved 1.2 million people in Israel.
This is a potentially landmark moment for countries desperate to end lockdowns and reopen economies.
Up until now, most data on the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines has come under controlled conditions in clinical trials, leaving an element of uncertainty over how results would translate into the real world with its unpredictable variables.
The research in Israel – two months into one of the world’s fastest rollouts, providing a rich source of data – showed two doses of the Pfizer shot cut symptomatic Covid-19 cases by 94 per cent across all age groups, and severe illnesses by nearly as much.
The study involved 1.2 million people and also showed a single shot was 57% effective in protecting against symptomatic infections after two weeks, according to the data published and peer-reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In addition to this, the study also suggests the vaccine, developed by U.S drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, is effective against the coronavirus variant first identified in the UK.
However, it did not shed light on how the Pfizer shot will fare against another variant, now dominant in South Africa, that has been shown to reduce the efficacy of other vaccines.
Of the 9 million people in Israel, a nation with universal healthcare, nearly half have received a first dose, and a third have received both doses since the rollout began on December 19.
-CHK
