Pfizer’s Booster Dose is Highly Effective Against Omicron: Study
Posted by HAROON HAYDER
The preliminary results of a real-world study have revealed that a booster or third dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective against the Omicron variant, which is the most mutated strain of the coronavirus and was first identified in South Africa in November.
A statement by the United Kingdom’s (UK) Health Security Agency (HSA) detailed that the study involved 581 patients with positive Omicron diagnoses. They had been vaccinated with two doses of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines whose protection had proved to be inadequate against symptomatic Omicron infections.
However, a booster dose of Pfizer’s vaccine had given 70 percent protection against the Omicron variant to people who had originally been vaccinated with AstraZeneca and 75 percent protection to those immunized with Pfizer.
This is one of the first real-world studies that offers epidemiological insight into booster doses’ ability to protect against the Omicron variant.
HSA had previously claimed that a booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine gives 90 percent protection against the Delta variant — the highly transmissible strain of coronavirus that had first emerged from India last year, and accounts for most of the cases and deaths worldwide.
Earlier this week, initial results of research by Pfizer to determine the efficacy of its vaccine against Omicron revealed that it neutralizes the strain.
The researchers analyzed the blood samples of hundreds of individuals who had originally been vaccinated with Pfizer’s vaccine. The antibodies in their blood did not neutralize the Omicron variant completely after two doses but the third dose enabled the antibodies to effectively prevent the virus from replicating.
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