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A new efficacy study of Israel’s COVID vaccine has concluded that the Pfizer / BioNTech jab is up to 85% effective after the first dose.
The research, conducted by the Sheba Medical Center, the nation’s largest hospital, has been published in the Lancet medical journal.
The hospital evaluated the efficacy of the first dose of Pfizer / BioNTech vaccinates among 7,000 of its healthcare employees.
Each of the workers received their first dose in January and the research team observed an 85% reduction in clinical (symptomatic) symptoms. COVID-19 between 15 and 28 days after the puncture.
But critically, they also observed efficacy in asymptomatic patients.
The study found that all infections, including asymptomatic ones, were reduced by 75% after the first dose.
Professor Eyal Leshem, an infectious disease expert and director of the Sheba Travel and Tropical Medicine Institute, told Sky News: “This is the first real evidence of effectiveness to appear after the first dose of the vaccine.
“We had some clues from the clinical trials and some calculations that were made based on the clinical trial [but] this shows early efficacy, even before the second dose was administered. “
A man receives a dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in Israel. Photo: AP
The analysis, which has been peer-reviewed, provides a much more positive outlook than separate preliminary data released by researchers from an Israeli healthcare provider, Clalit, last month.
With a larger sample of 200,000 patients, the January study saw a 33% drop in positivity 14 days after the first dose.
Professor Leshem said that the sample in the new study, although smaller, was made up of healthcare workers, giving it a useful focus.
Sheba Medical Center evaluated the vaccine effectiveness of the first dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine among 7,000 of its healthcare employees. Photo: AP
“[It] It is very specific, it is a closed group of people, with very easy access to medical care and tests, these are Sheba’s health workers.
“So the moment they are exposed or have the mildest symptoms, they get tested, whereas if you are a Clalit insured person [in the January study] it could take several days. He could forgo testing because it is difficult and he is asymptomatic or he just had a little exposure. “
The latest study will be seen as a boost to the UK government’s decision to delay the second dose of the vaccine well beyond the manufacturer’s recommendation of three weeks.
Professor Eyal Leshem is an infectious disease expert and director of the Sheba Travel and Tropical Medicine Institute.
The author of the report, Professor Arnon Afek, Deputy Director General of Sheba Medical Center, said: “This groundbreaking research supports the decision of the British government to begin inoculating its citizens with a single dose of the vaccine.”
Professor Leshem said that he likes the more cautious statements, but added: “I would say that there is some evidence to support the decision to postpone the second dose, because on the one hand, it seems that we have very good effectiveness of the first dose: early and high effectiveness.
“And on the other hand, postponing the second dose will allow for much greater coverage … given the limited supply of vaccines.”
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In December, the UK government announced that delay second dose in order to inoculate as many people as possible with the first dose in an effort to protect more population.
He based his decision on the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI).
A document issued by the JCVI, to justify the delay of the second dose for up to 12 weeks, said: “Using data from cases observed between days 15 and 21, the efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 was estimated at a 89%, which suggests that in the short term the protection of dose one is very high from day 14 after vaccination. “
The Israeli data looked at efficacy up to four weeks after the first dose. The study does not give any evidence-based indication that efficacy is maintained for 12 weeks. However, Professor Leshem said that it is reasonable to assume that the efficacy will remain beyond four weeks.
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“In fact, we think this assumption is physiologically very reasonable,” he told Sky News.
“The physiology of the vaccine is that immunity does not decrease very quickly after receiving a dose.
In the protection trends that we are seeing in the initial period between the third week and the fourth week, the further we go from the first dose, the better the protection. It is possible that after the fourth week, the protection is even better by 85%.
“It still needs to be tested, and it will be better tested in the UK where there are more people who got just one dose. In Israel, most of them get the second dose in the fourth week so we don’t have a big dose.” single vaccine population “.
