Source: Reuters | Editor: SS Kurniawan
KONTAN.CO.ID – Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE said on Wednesday (9/3) data from Israel showed that their coronavirus vaccine is 94% effective in preventing asymptomatic infections.
Which means, Pfizer and BioNTech said the vaccine could significantly reduce the transmission of the corona virus.
Launch ReutersAccording to Pfizer and BioNTech, the latest analysis of Israeli data shows that their vaccine is 97% effective in preventing symptomatic illness, severe illness and death from Covid-19.
That’s basically in line with the 95% efficacy of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines reported from their final stage clinical trials in December last year.
The analysis also provides evidence of the effectiveness of the vaccine against the highly contagious variant of the coronavirus first discovered in the UK, known as B.1.1.7.
More than 80% of the specimens tested when the analysis was performed were variant B.1.1.7.
Also Read: New research: Mutation of corona virus B.1.1.7 more lethal 30% -100%, watch out!
There are only a small number of infections in Israel that are caused by the so-called South African variant, known as B.1.351. So, Pfizer and BioNTech cannot evaluate the effectiveness of the vaccine against this variant.
Israel leads the world in vaccination launches, partly because of an agreement to share data with Pfizer and BioNTech.
As of Wednesday, about 55% of Israel’s 9 million population had received at least one dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, according to Israeli Health Ministry data, and 43% had received both doses.
According to the analysis, people who were not vaccinated were 44 times more likely to develop symptoms of the coronavirus and 29 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those who had received the vaccine.
However, data collected from 17 January to 6 March have not been peer reviewed.
