April 11th – Pfizer of the United States and BioNTech in Germany said in early April that the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine was effective against the variant of COVID-19 found in South Africa, and a study released by Israeli research institutions on the 10th showed that the variant virus found in South Africa could “breakthrough” to a certain extent. Pfizer’s protective net for vaccine, but the study has not been peer-reviewed.
Tel Aviv University and Israeli medical service Clarit Research Institute released the latest study on the 10th, according to Reuters. The team divided 800 coronavirus patients. In two batches, one is a confirmed person who has not been vaccinated, and the other group is a confirmed person who is still infected after 14 days of vaccination with one or two doses of Pfizer vaccine.
The study found that 1% of the subjects were infected with the Variant virus found in South Africa. Among them, patients who were still diagnosed after two doses of Pfizer vaccine were nearly eight times more likely to be infected with the Variant virus than those who were not vaccinated, with 5.4% and 0.7%, respectively.
Adi Stern, an expert from Tel Aviv University, said that patients who have two doses of vaccine are more likely to be infected with the Variant virus found in South Africa than patients who have not been vaccinated, which means that the Variant virus can “break through” the protective effect of Pfizer vaccine to some extent.
However, the researchers also stressed that due to the low infection rate of Variant viruses found in South Africa in Israel, the study has few samples and cannot infer the overall protective effect of Pfizer vaccine on the Variant virus. Moreover, this study has not been peer-reviewed.
At present, Pfizer and German BioNTech have not commented on this.
Pfizer and BioNTech said on April 1 that the vaccine they produce is as effective as 91% in preventing COVID-19, and after adding new clinical data, they claimed that the vaccine is effective against variant viruses found in South Africa.
