London: Two doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalisation from the Delta (B16172) varian...
London: Two doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalisation from the Delta (B16172) variant, new analysis from Public Health England (PHE) reveals. While the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is 96 per cent effective against hospitalisation after two doses, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is 92 per cent effective against hospitalisation after two doses.
These are comparable with vaccine effectiveness
against hospitalisation from the Alpha (B117) variant: 96 per cent after two
doses with Pfizer vaccine and 92 per cent after two doses from AstraZeneca
vaccines.
The new analysis included 14,019 cases of the Delta
variant, of which 166 were hospitalised between April 12 and June 4 in England.
The results have been posted as a preprint. Preprints are yet to be
peer-reviewed.
“This evidence of the effectiveness of two doses
against the variants shows how crucial it is to get your second jab. If you
have had your first dose but haven’t booked your second yet please do so. It
will help save lives and boost us on the road to recovery,” said t Matt Hancock,
the Health and Social Care Secretary, in a statement.
“These hugely important findings confirm that the
vaccines offer significant protection against hospitalisation from the Delta
variant. The vaccines are the most important tool we have against Covid-19.
Thousands of lives have already been saved because of them. It is absolutely
vital to get both doses as soon as they are offered to you, to gain maximum
protection against all existing and emerging variants,” added Dr Mary Ramsay,
Head of Immunisation at PHE.
A study by PHE in May showed that three weeks after
the first dose of both Pfizer and AstraZeneca’s Coronavirus vaccines provided
only 33 per cent protection against the Delta variant, while it offered 50 per
cent effectiveness against the Alpha variant.
The B16172 variant was first discovered in India
and is one of three related strains. It was declared as a variant of global
concern last month by the World Health Organization. It is 60 per cent more
transmissible than the Alpha strain identified in the UK.
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