The first dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccination is 85 percent effective against coronavirus infection between two and four weeks after inoculation, according to a study published in the medical journal Lancet.
© JACK GUEZ
An Israeli health worker prepares to administer a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine into a van in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
The survey was carried out with health professionals from Israel’s largest hospital, which launched a mass vaccination campaign on December 19 considered the fastest in the world.
Israeli studies found that the vaccine developed by the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech was 95 percent effective one week after a second injection, while the Lancet report focused on more than 9,000 medical teams at Sheba hospital, near Tel. Aviv.
About 7,000 of them received the first dose and the rest were not inoculated.
Of the group, 170 were diagnosed with Covid-19 after tests performed only on people with symptoms or who were in contact with coronavirus carriers.
Fifty-two percent of them have not been vaccinated.
Comparing the two groups, Sheba’s study calculated that the vaccine was 47 percent effective between one and 14 days after inoculation, increasing to 85 percent after 15 to 28 days.
“What we see is a really high efficacy right after two weeks, between two weeks to four weeks after the vaccine, already an 85 percent high effectiveness in reducing symptomatic infection,” said Gili Regev-Yochay, co-author of the study. small group of journalists.
He said that although the vaccine is “incredibly effective”, scientists are still studying whether fully vaccinated people can transmit the virus to others.
“That is the big, big question. We are working on it. It is not in this newspaper and I hope we have good news soon,” said Regev-Yochay.
Israel administered an injection of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine to 4.23 million residents, or 47 percent of its population of nine million, 2.85 million of whom received the full recommended course of two jabs, show the latest data from the Ministry of Health. health.
Separately on Friday, Pfizer and BioNTech said their vaccine could withstand higher temperatures than initially thought, potentially simplifying the complex cold chain logistics of the vaccine.
The companies said they asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow the vaccine to be stored for up to two weeks between minus 25 and minus 15 degrees Celsius (minus 13 to five degrees Fahrenheit) – temperatures commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers and refrigerators.
According to existing guidelines, the Pfizer / BioNTech jab needs to be stored in a cold temperature of minus 80 to minus 60 C for up to five days before use, a delicate process that requires special ultra-cool shipping containers and dry ice for storage.
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