Data from the rollout of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine shows one dose of the shot results in 80% less risk of death from the disease.
This has been revealed byPublic Health England.
Protection against death from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine rises from approximately 80% after one dose to 97% after two doses in its new analysis, revealed the data made public on Monday.
PHE said the study was the first on protection against mortality from the AstraZeneca vaccine based on data from a real world setting.
The study looked at new symptomatic cases of Covid-19 between December and April and people who died within 28 days of their positive test by vaccination status.
People who had a single dose of AstraZeneca vaccine were 55% protected against death, with a figure of 44% protection for a single dose of Pfizer, compared to unvaccinated people.
“Combined with the protection vaccines offer against becoming a case in the first place, this is equivalent to approximately 80% protection against mortality in individuals vaccinated with a single dose of either vaccine,” PHE said in a statement.
Protection against mortality from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine improved to 69% for cases who had their second dose at least a week before they tested positive. Combined with the estimated protection from getting Covid-19 to start with, this is equivalent to an estimated 97% protection, PHE said.
The given study could be encouraging for India given that the Serum Institute of India is mass manufacturing Covishield, which is a licensed version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.