Study finds AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs are effective against variant identified in India

A study in England has found that the AstraZeneca and Pfizer coronavirus vaccines are highly effective against the variant identified in India after two doses.

The BBC reports two jabs of either vaccine to give a similar level of protection against symptomatic disease from variants identified in India as they do for the Kent variant which was first identified in the UK.

However, both vaccines were only 33 percent effective against the variant from India three weeks after the first dose.

This compared with 50% effectiveness against the Kent variant.

Public Health England, which ran the study, said the vaccines are likely to be even more effective at preventing hospital admission and deaths.

The Pfizer vaccine was found to be 88% effective at stopping the symptomatic disease from the variant identified in India two weeks after the second dose, compared with 93% effectiveness against the Kent variant.

The AstraZeneca jab was 60% effective against the variant identified in India, compared with 66% against the Kent variant.

Public Health England said the difference in effectiveness between the vaccines after two doses may be explained by the fact that rollout of second doses of Astra-Zeneca was later than for the Pfizer vaccine, which was approved first.

They say other data shows it takes longer to reach maximum effectiveness with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

[Source: BBC]